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The Performance Computing CommunityThu, 27 Jul 2017 13:00:21 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.2AMD Ryzen 3 1200 and 1300X CPU Reviewhttp://www.overclockers.com/amd-ryzen-3-1200-and-1300x-cpu-review/
http://www.overclockers.com/amd-ryzen-3-1200-and-1300x-cpu-review/#respondThu, 27 Jul 2017 13:00:02 +0000http://www.overclockers.com/?p=106322Bringing in the tail-end of the newest AMD CPUs we have the Ryzen 3 lineup. This is AMD's offering for the budget-minded PC user. Today we'll be looking at the two quad-core offerings, the 1200 and 1300X. The 1300X has the XFR technology we've seen from the Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, and Ryzen 5 1500X/1600X allowing for boost speeds over their typical max. The 1200 is locked to its listed speeds, unless you're overclocking. One major difference from the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 CPUs is the exclusion of Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) from the Ryzen 3 processors. While this does mean a performance hit for multithreaded applications, it also cuts the cost of the product making it accessible to more users. Let's take a closer look at the lineup now. Read More

]]>Bringing in the tail-end of the newest AMD CPUs we have the Ryzen 3 lineup. This is AMD‘s offering for the budget-minded PC user. Today we’ll be looking at the two quad-core offerings, the 1200 and 1300X. The 1300X has the XFR technology we’ve seen from the Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, and Ryzen 5 1500X/1600X allowing for boost speeds over their typical max. The 1200 is locked to its listed speeds, unless you’re overclocking. One major difference from the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 CPUs is the exclusion of Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) from the Ryzen 3 processors. While this does mean a performance hit for multithreaded applications, it also cuts the cost of the product making it accessible to more users. Let’s take a closer look at the lineup now.

Specifications and Features

From the specifications table below, the 1200 and 1300X are both quad core CPUs without SMT, giving a total of four cores and threads. This total core/thread count comes from the use of two CPU Complexes (CCX), more on this arrangement in a second. The base clock comes in at 3.1 GHz and will boost two cores (four threads) to 3.4 GHz for the 1200 and 3.5 GHz boosting to 3.7 GHz on the 1300X. The inclusion of XFR (Xtended Frequency Range) technology on the 1300X allows another 200 MHz over both the base and boost clocks, when temperature allows. TDP of these two CPUs comes in at 65 W for both the 1200 and the 1300X. The cooling medium between the die and IHS is solder, instead of thermal paste as Intel has used on their Mainstream CPUs.

Like Ryzen 5, the Ryzen 3 CPUs will be balanced between CCXs. Both Ryzen 3 1200 and 1300X have two CCXs with two cores enabled on each. AMD is keeping it balanced and using their selective core disabling functionality to drop the core count.

Memory on this CPU/platform supports a total of 128 GB with the base specification of DDR4-2400 in a dual channel configuration. It does not support ECC memory.

Regarding PCI Express (PCIe) support, Ryzen offers a total of 24 lanes out of the CPU allowing good flexibility for multiple cards, PCIe-based NVMe SSDs, and other PCIe-based devices. Sixteen of the lanes are dedicated to graphics, four are dedicated to the native M.2 PCIe NVMe slot, and the last four connect to the chipset. Different chipsets will provide their own additional PCIe lanes for even more device connectivity.

Windows 10 is the officially supported platform for Ryzen. That said, there will be drivers available for use with Windows 7 and 8.1, but know there is no official support for these older operating systems.

Specifications

Ryzen 3 1200

Ryzen 3 1300X

# of Cores

4

4

# of Threads

4

4

Base Clock Speed

3.1 GHz

3.5 GHz

Boost Clock Speed

3.4 GHz

3.7 GHz

Instruction Set

64-bit

64-bit

Instruction Set Extensions

SSE 4.1/4.2/4a, AVX2, SHA

SSE 4.1/4.2/4a, AVX2, SHA

Lithography

14 nm FinFET

14 nm FinFET

Transistor Count

4.8 billion

4.8 billion

TDP

65 W

65 W

Thermal Solution Spec

Soldered

Soldered

Integrated Graphics

N/A

N/A

L1 Cache

128 KB I-Cache (64 KB per CCX)
128 KB D-Cache (64 KB per CCX)

128 KB I-Cache (64 KB per CCX)
128 KB D-Cache (64 KB per CCX)

L2 Cache

2 MB (512 KB per core)

2 MB (512 KB per core)

L3 Cache

8 MB (4 MB per CCX)

8 MB (4 MB per CCX)

Memory Specifications

Max Memory Size

128 GB

128 GB

Memory Types

DDR4-2400

DDR4-2400

# of Memory Channels

2

2

ECC Memory Support

No

No

Expansion Options

PCI Express Revision

3.0

3.0

PCI Express Configurations

1×16+1×4+1×4, 2×8+1×4+1×4

1×16+1×4+1×4, 2×8+1×4+1×4

Max # of PCI Express Lanes

24 Lanes

24 Lanes

The table below is a list of the Ryzen lineup. Every CPU on this list is overclockable, assuming you buy a motherboard with a chipset capable of doing so. Only SKUs with an X on the end have the new XFR (eXtended Frequency Range) technology, note. According to AMD, the X SKU processors are binned and manufactured to be better overclockers.

AMD Ryzen CPU Model

Cores/
Threads

Base Clock

Boost Clock

L3 Cache

Cooler Included

XFR

TDP

Ryzen 7 1800X

8/16

3.6 GHz

4.0 GHz

16 MB

No

Yes

95 W-SR3+

Ryzen 7 1700X

8/16

3.4 GHz

3.8 GHz

16 MB

No

Yes

95 W-SR3+

Ryzen 7 1700

8/16

3.0 GHz

3.7 GHz

16 MB

Wraith Spire

No

65 W

Ryzen 5 1600X

6/12

3.6 GHz

4.0 GHz

16 MB

No

Yes

95 W

Ryzen 5 1600

6/12

3.2 GHz

3.6 GHz

16 MB

Wraith Spire

No

65 W

Ryzen 5 1500X

4/8

3.5 GHz

3.7 GHz

16 MB

Wraith Spire

Yes

65 W

Ryzen 5 1500

4/8

3.2 GHz

3.4 GHz

16 MB

Wraith Stealth

No

65 W

Ryzen 3 1300X

4/4

3.5 GHz

3.7 GHz

16 MB

Wraith Stealth

Yes

65 W

Ryzen 3 1200

4/4

3.1 GHz

3.4 GHz

16 MB

Wraith Stealth

No

65 W

CPU Clock Speed Breakdown

To make it absolutely clear what the clock speed is in all loading/temperature scenarios, please see the table below.

AMD Ryzen 3 1200

High Temp Speed
(No XFR)

Low Temp Speed
(XFR Active)

All Cores Loaded

3.1 GHz

3.1 GHz

Two Cores (Four Threads) Loaded

3.4 GHz

3.45 GHz

One Core (Two Threads) Loaded

3.4 GHz

3.45 GHz

AMD Ryzen 3 1300X

High Temp Speed
(No XFR)

Low Temp Speed
(XFR Active)

All Cores Loaded

3.5 GHz

3.7 GHz

Two Cores (Four Threads) Loaded

3.7 GHz

3.9 GHz

One Core (Two Threads) Loaded

3.7 GHz

3.9 GHz

Product Tour

Below are some images from AMD of the product packaging for the new Ryzen 3 CPUs. Both the 1200 and 1300X come with Wraith Stealth (pictured later).

Retail Boxes

Taking a look at the Wraith Stealth, we see your basic included heatsink. A four-pin fan connector here allows for PWM control of the fan speed. Again, this is included with both the 1200 and 1300X.

Wraith Stealth – Front

Wraith Stealth – Rear

Next up are pictures of the two Ryzen 3 samples we have, front and back. I see no discernible differences between the CPUs other than the laser markings on the IHS.

Ryzen 3 CPU – Front

Ryzen 3 CPU – Rear

Benchmarks

The data we have gathered will give us a great idea of its performance both at stock (no turbo), and matching clockspeeds to see IPC performance differences between them all. I have included Kaby Lake results with the i7-7700K, a quad core with SMT in the Ryzen 5 1500X, and the big-boy Ryzen 7 1800X. Unfortunately I do not have any i3 or i5 processors on hand to compare to.

Benchmarks Used

All benchmarks were run with the motherboard being set to optimized defaults (outside of some memory settings which had to be configured manually). When “stock” is mentioned along with the clockspeed, it does not reflect the boost clocks, only the base clocks. I tested this way as it seems motherboards are different in how they work out of the box. This takes out any differences in how AMD/Intel utilize their turbo features and how the motherboards handle turbo, so this is more of a “run what you brung” type of testing for stock speeds. Memory speeds were set at DDR4-3000 15-15-15-35 for all testing, regardless of the kit specifications. The only exception to this is the AMD system running at DDR4-2933 16-15-15-35, this is due to how the memory dividers and timings are handled.

After the testing, we then shifted to comparing the AMD and Intel systems all at the same clockspeeds (4 GHz, except Ryzen 3 at 3.9 GHz). This testing will flesh out the difference in Instructions Per Clock (IPC) between the samples. This also applies to the gaming tests.

CPU Tests

AIDA64 Engineer CPU, FPU, and Memory Tests

Cinebench R11.5 and R15

x265 1080p Benchmark (HWBOT)

POVRay

SuperPi 1M/32M

WPrime 32M/1024M

7Zip

All CPU tests were run at their default settings unless otherwise noted.

Gaming Tests

All game tests were run at 1920×1080 and 2560×1440. Please see our testing procedures for details on in-game settings. Due to availability of some of the older CPU’s we will be using a 980Ti for testing the games.

3DMark Fire Strike Extreme

Crysis 3

Dirt: Rally

Ashes of the Singularity

Rise of the Tomb Raider

AIDA64 Tests

Up first, the AIDA64 CPU tests. These tests are at the AMD/Intel base clock speeds listed. We can see the 1200 and 1300X making a great showing against the faster competition.

AIDA64 CPU – Stock

AIDA64 CPU – Raw Data

CPU

Queen

PhotoWorxx

Zlib

AES

Hash

1200 @ 3.1 GHz

25896

18691

186.6

24296

6133

1300X @ 3.5 GHz

29380

19730

212.1

27489

6943

1500X @ 3.5 GHz

46108

18836

328.3

31122

10568

1800X @ 3.6 GHz

83640

20600

663.8

63986

21749

i7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz

51215

23117

378.5

19141

4817

Next we see the FPU tests. In VP8 the latest update was not playing nicely, so those numbers are not included. Again, core counts and/or SMT make the Ryzen 3 chips bring up the rear as expected.

AIDA64 FPU – Stock

AIDA64 FPU – Raw Data

CPU

VP8

Julia

Mandel

SinJulia

1200 @ 3.1 GHz

15365

8077

36050

1300X @ 3.5 GHz

17284

9154

4131

1500X @ 3.5 GHz

6691

17749

9239

5995

1800X @ 3.6 GHz

7949

36515

19025

12337

i7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz

7980

35687

19197

5060

The memory tests pretty much speak for themselves. An expectedly flat set of numbers here. Memory latency is still high for Ryzen, but it doesn’t seem to impact performance in any of the other testing. Let’s be honest here, the vast majority of users will never notice the extra 20-30 ns over Intel since most usage cases are not memory constrained.

AIDA64 Mem – Stock

AIDA64 Mem – Raw Data

CPU

Read

Write

Copy

Latency

1200 @ 3.1 GHz

42830

43135

37362

85.4

1300X @ 3.5 GHz

43393

43633

37440

82

1500X @ 3.5 GHz

43487

43080

37839

83.9

1800X @ 3.6 GHz

43833

43109

37892

84.6

i7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz

42147

44416

37689

49.8

Real World Tests

In the next set of testing you can really look at the 1500X compared to the 1200 and 1300X to see how much SMT does. Since Ryzen 3 targets the Intel i3 lineup, I’d say they’re doing darned well considering it was over half the speed of the i7 in all these tests except x265.

Cinebench R11.5/R15, POVRay, x265 (HWBot), 7Zip – Stock

Cinebench R11.5/R15, POVRay, x265 (HWBot), 7Zip – Raw Data

CPU

R11.5

R15

POVRay

x265

7Zip

1200 @ 3.1 GHz

5.48

480

1171.4

15.25

13186

1300X @ 3.5 GHz

6.24

547

1334.53

17.08

14812

1500X @ 3.5 GHz

8.72

796

1654.53

20.92

21812

1800X @ 3.6 GHz

17.68

1600

3299.77

39.75

39713

i7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz

10.07

918

1960.54

33.25

25772

Pi-Based Tests

Prime tests are definitely not AMD’s strong suit, so the Ryzen 3 results here are about what I expected.

SuperPi 1M/32M, wPrime 32M/1024M – Stock

SuperPi and wPrime Benchmarks – Raw Data

CPU

SuperPi 1M

SuperPi 32M

wPrime 32M

wPrime 1024M

1200 @ 3.1 GHz

14.081

745.127

10.316

321.595

1300X @ 3.5 GHz

12.407

678.736

9.13

285.471

1500X @ 3.5 GHz

11.829

609.316

6.671

191.333

1800X @ 3.6 GHz

11.548

592.350

4.374

100.900

i7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz

8.796

463.495

5.201

153.589

Game Results

Just a reminder, all tests from this point forward have all CPU’s running at 4 GHz, 3.9 GHz for Ryzen 3, instead of their stock speeds. And as we expected, almost all game results were within a margin of error of each other. The only really notable difference here is in Ashes DX12, which has been optimized for Ryzen now and can also utilize a lot of cores. Ryzen 3 can game with the best of them, even at 1440p.

1080p Gaming Results – Head to Head

1440p Gaming Results – Head to Head

Most of the scoring differences here in 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme came from the scaling of cores in the Physics test. The dip for the 1300X makes me think it wasn’t 100% stable at 3.9 GHz. All in all, I’m impressed for these being budget processors.

3DMark Fire Strike Extreme – Head to Head

Head to Head Results

In our head to head results, we ran all of the systems at 4 GHz, except 3.9 GHz for Ryzen 3. This shows the differences in IPC and cores directly. Overall, we see good scaling when upping the CPU speed as we have with other Ryzen processors.

AIDA64 CPU – 4 GHz

AIDA64 FPU – 4 GHz

AIDA64 Mem – 4 GHz

Cinebench R11.5/R15, POVRay, x265 (HWBot), 7Zip – 4 GHz

SuperPi 1M/32M, wPrime 32M/1024M – 4 GHz

Overclocking

Ryzen 3 1200

While trying to stabilize for 4.0 GHz testing of the Ryzen 3 1200, I managed to degrade it a tad. It simply wouldn’t stabilize out at 4.0 for me, even with lots of voltage, but I did have it running at that speed for a while. The end of the road here, stable enough to run benchmarks, was 3.9 GHz.

Ryzen 3 1300X

The story was much the same for the Ryzen 3 1300X, it topped out at 3.9 GHz as well. This one was a fight to even get the system to want to cooperate at 3.9 GHz, but I eventually was able to get it benchmarking stable. Even so, no more in the tank for this piece of silicon either.

Information from AMD Regarding Overclocking

As a general guideline: a CPU voltage of up to 1.35 V is acceptable for driving everyday overclocks of the AMD Ryzen processor. Core voltages up to 1.45 V are also sustainable, but our models suggest that processor longevity may be affected. Regardless of your voltage, make sure you’re using capable cooling to keep temperatures as low as possible.

While there are never guarantees with overclocking, the majority of users should find that an eight core, sixteen thread, AMD Ryzen processor will achieve 4.2 GHz at a core voltage of 1.45 V. Advanced and accomplished overclockers trying to push record frequencies may find more headroom by disabling cores and/or disabling SMT on motherboards that offer these options in the BIOS.

Memory voltage: Look for MEM_VDDIO (type in value) and MEM_VTT (set MEM_VTT to ½ of MEM_VDDIO). VDDIO is voltage (“memory voltage”) supplied to the DRAM ICs, and MEM_VTT powers termination logic inside the DRAM ICs. These values are OFFSETS and will read as zero. Boost Memory VDDIO to stabilize memory overclocking. (e.g. MEM_VDDIO set to +0.025 will bring 1.5 V DRAM to 1.525 V.)

Power Consumption and Temperatures

Here we see a comparison of the power consumption of the overall system for the 1200, 1300X, 1500X, and 1800X all running both their base speed and locked at 4 GHz, except 3.9 GHz for Ryzen 3. This was all done with the same GPU settings, motherboard, BIOS, cooling, and number of fans so any differences here are purely due to core count and clock speeds. You can see the Ryzen 3 1200 got power hungry when overclocking, it was taking a lot of voltage to stabilize.

Power Graph

As above with the power graph, this spread of temperatures represents the 1200, 1300X, 1500X, and 1800X all running both their base speed and locked at 4 GHz, except 3.9 GHz for Ryzen 3. This was all done with the same GPU settings, motherboard, BIOS, cooling, and number of fans so any differences here are purely due to core count and clock speeds. You can see the Ryzen 3 1200 also got hot when overclocking due to the extra power drawn.

Temperature Graph

Conclusion

In the end, the Ryzen 3 processors are a great budget processor. Performance, particularly in gaming, was very good. Competition here is intended to be the Intel i3 series, of which those only have two physical cores. All of the Ryzen 3 series has four physical cores. With games fully utilizing quad core processors these days, that can mean quite a help in FPS for gamers.

The Ryzen 3 1200 will launch at an MSRP of $109, the 1300X at $129. If you paired one of these with a B350 based motherboard and a mid-range GPU, you could easily build a full gaming tower with a GTX 1060 for around $700-800 without cutting corners on quality parts.

]]>http://www.overclockers.com/amd-ryzen-3-1200-and-1300x-cpu-review/feed/0GIGABYTE Z270X-Gaming SOC Motherboard Reviewhttp://www.overclockers.com/gigabyte-z270x-gaming-soc-motherboard-review-2/
http://www.overclockers.com/gigabyte-z270x-gaming-soc-motherboard-review-2/#respondTue, 18 Jul 2017 12:15:36 +0000http://www.overclockers.com/?p=106278Today's newest victim for the torture table is GIGABYTE's new Z270X-Gaming SOC, their flagship overclocking motherboard. This board has one job, and only one job, to be as fast as physically possible while pushing your CPU as far as possible. There's notably fewer features than the Z170X-SOC Force, though, because GIGABYTE has gone back to the roots of the extreme overclocker with this board. If anything can handle the punishment, it'll be this board. Read More

]]>Today’s newest victim for the torture table is GIGABYTE’s new Z270X-Gaming SOC, their flagship overclocking motherboard. This board has one job, and only one job, to be as fast as physically possible while pushing your CPU as far as possible. There’s notably fewer features than the Z170X-SOC Force, though, because GIGABYTE has gone back to the roots of the extreme overclocker with this board. If anything can handle the punishment, it’ll be this board.

Specifications and Features

Compared to the Z270X-Gaming 8 which recently graced our front page, you’ll note quite a few less add-ons for the Z270X-Gaming SOC. We get a single Intel NIC, a Realtek-powered audio section with only one interchangeable opamp, and fewer storage connections. Gone are the water cooling heatsink, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.

What you gain though, that’s for the serious power users of you readers. A stronger VRM, support for the GIGABYTE OC Touch panel, and internal USB Type-A connectors for those who don’t use a case.

1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)
* For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot.1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8)
* The PCIEX8 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16 slot. When the PCIEX8 slot is populated, the PCIEX16 slot operates at up to x8 mode.2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x4 (PCIEX4_1, PCIEX4_2)
* The PCIEX4_1 slot shares bandwidth with the M2P_32G connector. The PCIEX4_1 slot and M2P_32G connector operate at up to x2 mode when both are populated.
* The PCIEX4_2 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX8 and PCIEX16 slots. When the PCIEX4_2 slot is populated, the PCIEX16 slot operates at up to x8 mode and the PCIEX8 operates at up to x4 mode.2 x PCI Express x1 slots
(All of the PCI Express slots conform to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)

Even though GIGABYTE did pare down the feature set of the SOC some, we still see plenty of features. Onboard temperature sensors, RGBW LED strip support, and a plethora of PWM fan headers. For the serious overclockers we see the onboard Turbo button, BCLK adjustment buttons, power/reset buttons, and plenty more.

The next table lists the high-level feature set of the GA-Z270X-Gaming SOC. All images and descriptions provided by GIGABYTE.

GIGABYTE GA-Z270X-Gaming SOC Features

Overclocking Made Easy
GIGABYTE OC Touch provides an array of physical buttons and switches to bring access to overclocking features at your fingertips—making overclocking on the fly extremely fast and easy.

OC Connect
OC Connect positions two USB connectors on the near side of the motherboard facing the overclocker. This makes it easier to save data, flash the BIOS or install software in open bench testing platforms whether for extreme overclocking or simply pretesting the PC before final component installation inside a case scenarios where accessing the rear panel I/O can be an inconvenience.

Turbo B-Clock
Built-in Advanced Performance Tuning IC
Turbo B-Clock Tuning IC in the GIGABYTE 200 series motherboards enable overclockers to have the ability to change their BCLK frequency to a desired value of their choice. With the new linear range adjustment option of the Tuning IC, ranges from 90MHz to 500MHz are now possible, so that overclockers are not limited to the 5% ranges of traditional straps.
*Turbo B-Clock overclocking range may vary according to CPU capabilities.

Smart Fan 5
With Smart Fan 5 users can ensure that their gaming PC can maintain its performance while staying cool. Smart Fan 5 allows users to interchange their fan headers to reflect different thermal sensors at different locations on the motherboard. Not only that, with Smart Fan 5 more hybrid fan headers that support both PWM and Voltage mode fans have been introduced to make the motherboard more liquid cooling friendly.

All Hybrid Fan Pin Headers
– All Hybrid Fan Headers can automatically detect the type of cooling device whether it be fan or pump with different PWM or Voltage mode.
– Supports up to 2 amps with built-in overcurrent protection—a must for high-end high current fans.

Immersive VR Gaming Experience
– VR requires more performance than Full HD graphics for a steady 90 FPS or greater.
– Only Gaming PCs can provide the best VR experience.

Easy to Install “G-Connector” Design
The tiny cables of the front panel connectors can be hard to manipulate as space is restricted and indicators being tiny. With the G-Connector, you can connect all the FP cables at once, simplifying the process of building your next PC and saving you some frustrations.

Packaging

I received an early release of the Z270 SOC, meaning there were no retail boxes currently available to show you guys.

Accessories

Being there were no retail packages, there were also no retail accessories available when I received this board.

What I did receive though was perfect for our readership, the optional (read: not included) GIGABYTE GC-OC Touch. This panel connects to the bottom of the Z270X-Gaming SOC and allows for handheld control of a number of features. Namely these are power/reset, clear CMOS/battery, BCLK speed +/-, CPU multi +/-, and quite a few other functions. You can see them all below in the pictures. Also this little board gives convenient voltage read points.

For those wondering, the gear button allows you to change between +/- 1 MHz and +/- 0.1 MHz steps in the BCLK frequency.

OC Panel – Front

OC Panel – Rear

OC Panel – Cable

The GIGABYTE GA-Z270X-Gaming SOC

Orange and black, or according to popular culture black and black. That’s the color scheme here, as we’ve seen on previous SOC boards. The orange is tastefully done, just enough color to say “I’m not here to screw around” was used on this board. Moving to the back we see the PCIe slots soldered exactly as described in the specs table above; one x16, one x8, and two x4. All heatsinks and covers were attached with screws to ensure the best connection possible.

Motherboard – Front

Motherboard – Rear

A Closer Look

Zooming in on the PCIe area of the Z270 SOC we can see more closely the four full length PCIe slots, two PCIe x1 slots, and the two M.2 connectors. Note both M.2 spaces support up to 110 mm devices. The four main PCIe slots are protected with GIGABYTE’s metal shielding, to improve slot strength and reduce potential EMI.

Motherboard – PCIe Area

In the upper left corner of the Z270X-Gaming SOC we find an 8-pin CPU power connector and optional 4-pin for when you’re really pushing the envelope. There is also a system fan header here.

Moving over to the upper right, we immediately spot the four DIMMs. There are also four SATA III ports here, the 24-pin ATX power connection, a USB 3.0 internal header, and a system fan header here. Over by the VRM heatsink and the fourth DIMM we can see the CPU fan header and CPU option header, the white connector supports 1 A and the black supports 2 A allowing for the use of water pumps without the need for external power.

Motherboard – Upper Left

Motherboard – Upper Right

In the lower left corner of the motherboard we find a few connections including the front audio, an S/PDIF output, RGBW LED header, Thunderbolt connector, and a front USB 2.0 connection. There is also a Gain switch for the audio which changes from 2.5x to 6x levels of gain, allowing the use of both high and low impedance devices.

Moving to the lower right, I’ll get the connections here out of the way first. There are two SATA Express connectors which can be used as four SATA III ports, a U.2 connector, two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, your front panel connections, and the OC Touch connector. There is a PWM system fan header here which also supports water pumps, meaning 2 A of current.

Now, for the overclocking functions in this corner, you guys ready for all of this? To start we have the power switch, reset switch, and CMOS clear switch which are pretty standard fare. We also find CPU ratio up and down buttons and an OC Turbo button (this will up your CPU multi and RAM speeds to GIGABYTE optimized levels). For troubleshooting there is the debug display, four LED’s by the U.2 connector for CPU, VGA, DRAM, and BOOT status, and two LED’s between the USB 3.0 ports showing when the main or backup BIOS are in use. The last two pieces are the BIOS Switch and DualBIOS Switch, the first allows you to boot from the main or backup BIOS while the second allows you to enable/disable the DualBIOS function.

The USB ports are broken down by color here, the yellow ports Gen 1 with the USB DAC functionality, red is the Gen 2 port, blue are Gen 1, and black are 2.0/1.1 ports.

The OC Ignition button allows you to maintain power to the motherboard and connected components while the system is shut down. This can be helpful when extreme overclocking to help avoid condensation. Please see the manual regarding usage of this feature.

Motherboard – I/O Ports

Stripping the GA-Z270X-Gaming SOC

For the voltage regulation on the Z270X Gaming SOC there are a monstrous 14 phases. Here we see them all uncovered.

Motherboard – VRM Exposed

There’s a dual International Regulator IR35201 setup, these are each fully digital, 8-phase PWM controllers. As best as I can tell there are 10 phases dedicated to the CPU itself and four for the iGPU.

I struggled a little bit here finding the correct LLC setting for this board when running my normal 5 GHz at 1.4 V setting, so here’s the gist of it.

Extreme @ 1.4 V overshot to 1.5 V

Medium @ 1.4 V slightly overshot to 1.41 V

Low @ 1.4 V slightly undershot to 1.39 V

Auto @ 1.4 V fell to 1.35 V and let the system crash under load

While comparing to a multimeter, CPUz was accurate to ±0.1 V on vCore.

IR35201 VRM Controller

Handling the power after the IR35201 controllers were ten IR3553M MOSFETs and 4 sets of ON Semiconductor NTMFS4C06N and NTMFS4C10N MOSFETs

IR3553M

NTMFS4C06N and NTMFS4C10N

The heatsinks for the VRM and chipset on the Z270X-Gaming SOC were plenty adequate and made great contact with their intended parts. The “fins” in each piece help increase surface area for better cooling potential.

The aesthetic covers for the audio section and rear I/O are simple, but they work. The smaller piece that goes over the audio section actually has a window for the LED lighting in the audio section to shine through.

Heatsink – Front

Heatsink – Rear

Aesthetic Covers – Front

Aesthetic Covers – Rear

Here we see the audio section of the Z270X-Gaming SOC. Driven by the Realtek ALC1220 CODEC and using a TI NE5532 Opamp, this is more than enough for an overclocking motherboard and even your above average users.

Motherboard – Audio Section

On the Z270X-Gaming SOC we find just one Gigabit Ethernet port, it is controlled by the Intel i219 NIC pictured below.

Intel i219 Ethernet Controller

UEFI BIOS and Overclocking Software

Seen here is the first screen in the BIOS, pressing ALT will show options on the right and bottom sides. This is how you can access Easy Mode, Q-Flash, and Smart Fan quickly.

Here we see the GIGABYTE APP Center, this is where you will find many motherboard controls, Windows controls, third party software, and a preferences screen. Basically, GIGABYTE has made a one-stop-shop for all the motherboard software they have. I’ll cover a few of these pieces of software next, but go to the GIGABYTE website to see all of the utilities available.

Lastly we’ll touch on System Information Viewer and V-Tuner. System Information Viewer shows all kinds of sensors (like the built-in ones) as well as performs fan control, allows recording of system sensors, and has a sidebar hardware monitor. V-Tuner allows overclocking of an installed graphics card. If you have multiple GPU’s in the system, you can overclock them individually.

We’ll perform our usual set of benchmarks which tests rendering, memory performance, and single/multi-threaded CPU performance. For 2D benchmarks we’ll use SuperPi 1M and 32M, wPrime, PiFast, and Intel XTU. For rendering it’s Cinebench R11.5 and R15. Memory performance is checked against AIDA64 and MaxxMEM. For encoding, we use x265 (HWBOT Version) and PoV Ray. A more real-world test is included in 7zip. Testing is performed with the CPU at 5GHz to eliminate any inherent differences in stock BIOS options. Memory speed is XMP, unless otherwise specified.

We’ll be comparing the GA-Z270X-Gaming SOC to a few different motherboards, their models and links to the reviews are below.

Single Threaded CPU Benchmarks – Super Pi 1M and 32M and PiFast

Comparison Graphs

Overall, the results seemed to be in line with the expected performance of a top-tier motherboard. MaxxMEM Copy is the only place we see the SOC not at the top or equaling other boards. On the Pi calculations and Cinebenches the Gaming SOC was in line with the other boards in the comparison, it trailed a touch in XTU though. Coming around to the multi threaded benchmarks and GIGABYTE made a strong show in x265, POVRay, and 7-Zip.

Pushing the Limits

For some reason I could never get the Z270X-Gaming SOC to stabilize over 5.0 GHz, even enough to complete Cinebench R15. The board simply takes more vCore than the Gaming 8 I reviewed previously and cannot get my CPU past 5.0 GHz. I had plenty of discussions with GIGABYTE about what the issue could be, and all tests came out without improvement.

Conclusion

Even though my overclocking results were somewhat limited, the board performed well. It met or exceeded expectations in all of the test suite at 5 GHz. The color scheme is a bit subdued from previous generations, with the board being mostly black with a few pops of orange spread around. The convenience of the OC Touch is great for those pushing the limits on a benching table.

As we’ve seen, the Z270X-Gaming SOC is a very purpose-built board. The reduction in non-necessary features over the previous generation is a welcome sight indeed for a board of this caliber. Said reduction is also reflected in the MSRP of this board, it comes in at a mere $249.99! This is a huge drop from the $400 for the Z170 SOC Force we saw last year. Even so, I can only give the Z270 SOC Force a “meh” rating since a gaming motherboard from the same manufacturer out-overclocked it.

]]>http://www.overclockers.com/gigabyte-z270x-gaming-soc-motherboard-review-2/feed/0MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM Motherboard Reviewhttp://www.overclockers.com/msi-x370-xpower-gaming-titanium-motherboard-review/
http://www.overclockers.com/msi-x370-xpower-gaming-titanium-motherboard-review/#respondMon, 17 Jul 2017 12:27:51 +0000http://www.overclockers.com/?p=105737The MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM is quite a mouthful but it's also an amazing looking motherboard. The Titanium line from MSI has, in recent years, been their "top of the line" offering. It comes loaded with extras and has a unique styling which sets this board apart from it's siblings. Currently it's sitting in the upper price range of the AM4 X370 motherboards at $259.99 from newegg.com. Read More

]]>The MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM is quite a mouthful but it’s also an amazing-looking motherboard. The XPower line from MSI has, in recent years, been their “top of the line” offering. Add the Titanium for that silvery finish and you have a sharp-looking powerhouse to base your build on. It comes loaded with extras and has a unique styling which sets this board apart from its siblings. So let’s dig in and get a closer look at the board’s performance and features compared to some of the competition.

Specifications

The Titanium is built around the AM4 socket and sports the AMD X370 chipset supporting the current AMD Ryzen line of CPUs and upcoming AMD 7th Gen APUs and Athlons. This board has support for up to 64 GB of dual channel DDR4 with speeds of 3200 MHz (OC). Officially, Ryzen supports speeds of DDR4 2666 since the launch but it is capable of higher speeds. This really depends on which DDR4 you purchase, so check the QVL linked in the table below.

On the graphics end we have three full length PCIe 3.0 slots for discrete cards which support NVIDIA SLI or AMD Crossfire for multiple cards. The XPower Gaming Titanium also has a DisplayPort and a HDMI 2.0 port to support the Ryzen-based A series CPUs with integrated Radeon graphics which should be launching soon.

For storage, there’s plenty of connectivity in a variety of flavors supported on the Titanium. We have two M.2 ports which support “M” Key type PCIe/SATA based NVMe drives located between the PCIe slots. One of these is equipped with the MSI “Steel Armour” cover. There are also six SATA 6Gb/s ports and one U.2 port located on the edge of the board. There’s support for up to eight drives in RAID configurations, refer to the manual for correct combinations.

MSI chose the Intel l211AT Gigabit LAN controller, not the latest and greatest but still very capable. They have also included their own “LAN Protect” to shield you from up to 15KV surges of static electricity or lightning strikes. For more control the MSI Gaming LAN Manager is included on the motherboard disc allowing you to prioritize applications for on-line gaming.

The audio section is driven by the Realtek ALC1220 Codec and delivers 7.1-Channel High Definition Audio. The Titanium is also equipped with MSI’s AUDIO BOOST 4 technology and high quality Chemi-Con capacitors to deliver “a high fidelity sound experience with exceptional acoustics and realism.”

Between the ASMedia ASM2142 Chipset, AMD X370 Chipset and the Ryzen CPU the Titanium offers up to 18 USB connections shared between the back I/O panel and on board connectors. This includes USB 3.1 type “A” and type “C” plus USB 2.0 type “A”. Reference the table below for specifics

Features

I’ll start this off with one of my favorite features which I think all motherboards should have: BIOS FLASHBACK+ on the MSI Titanium. This has to be one of the handiest features for clearing up BIOS issues. I regularly push my hardware to the limits and even beyond those limits every once in a while. That’s where the FLASHBACK+ can be a real life saver. Memory tuning can easily corrupt your Operating system and occasionally the BIOS. The ability to flash a clean BIOS to the board without having to have it boot is priceless. FLASHBACK+ works without a CPU installed so if you happen to have a CPU that isn’t supported without a BIOS update, you can do it yourself without the hassle of taking it to a shop.

Next we have the CLEAR CMOS button on the rear I/O panel. This too in my opinion should be on all motherboards. There are times that we can set parameters in BIOS that might be a bit too aggressive and you’re left with a PC that refuses to boot without being reset. No more crawling on your knees, opening up your case and looking for that tiny jumper in the darkness. You simply power off the computers power supply, hold the Clear CMOS button for 10 seconds and then power back up. Easy and convenient.

Another handy addition is the DEBUG LED. This readout will display post codes during normal start up and CPU temperature during operation. It will also display error codes if the system fails to boot normally. Very convenient for problems solving and identifying the cause of the failed boot.

MSI went all-out with the addition of their “Steel Armour”. For NVMe drives, it doubles as a heatsink to help prevent throttling due to temperature. You’ll also see the Steel Armour on the PCIe slots, U.2 port and DRAM slots. Not only does it look good but offers a level of protection against accidental damage and shields the data signals from electromagnetic interference (EMI).

For the Virtual Reality buffs, MSI hasn’t forgotten about you with the addition of “VR Boost” and their “VR Ready” software. VR Boost is a dedicated chip to ensure a clean, strong signal over a dedicated USB port. While the one click VR Ready software preps your PC for your VR headset. “A single click sets all your key components to their highest performance and makes sure other software applications won’t impact your virtual adventure.”

As I said earlier the MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM is packed with features, I have a few more listed below, but for full details follow the link to MSI’s website.

PREMIUM POWER PHASES

High quality components used in MSI motherboards ensure a stable and optimized power delivery for the best performance.

DEBUG LED

Run into trouble? The digital LED display will indicate the source of the problem so you know exactly where to look to get up and running again.

DIGITALL MEMORY POWER DESIGN

An all-digital power design offers lower power consumption and precise voltage delivery for enhanced efficiency for a non-stop gaming experience.

SUPER STABLE GAMING WITH THE HIGHEST QUALITY COMPONENTS

MSI uses Military Class 5 components, which is the latest evolution of the industries’ highest quality standard. These high quality components are shielded by the best protection to make sure your system runs smoothly under the most extreme gaming conditions.

HANDY CLEAR CMOS BUTTON

Conveniently placed on the IO panel, the Clear CMOS button lets you instantly reset the BIOS if needed. Saving you the hassle of opening your case and removing the jumper.

BIOS FLASHBACK+

Simply flash an old or new BIOS version and start overclocking within minutes. BIOS Flashback+ even works without a CPU, memory or graphics card installed!

PERSONALIZE YOUR GAMING RIG

Customize and set up your own color scheme with RGB Mystic Light Sync. Select any of the colors from the palette using your smartphone or the MSI Gaming App to match your system style. Bored of the same colors? Simply change the complete look of your system in 1 second!

FULLY CONTROLLABLE FAN HEADERS

MSI motherboards let you manage speeds and temperatures for all your system and CPU fans, giving you full control to set up a cool & silent system. The fan headers are conveniently placed with the most popular CPU coolers in mind.

OPTIMIZED FOR WATER COOLING

Designed to support the most popular All-In-One & custom water cooling solutions on the market. A dedicated water pump PIN header supports up to 2 amp, giving you full control of the water pump speed. A clearly marked ‘keep-out-zone’ allows for easy and safe installation and a perfect fit.

WANT MORE PERFORMANCE? TRY MULTI GPU!

Gaming enthusiasts are always looking for more performance to get the ultimate experience. Using multiple graphics cards is a great way to find out just how good it gets. MSI GAMING motherboards fully support multi GPU technologies and have optimal PCI-E slot placement for the best thermal performance.

*works best with MSI graphics cards

A DIFFERENT VIEW ON GAMING

MSI Dragon Eye allows you to watch a YouTube video or Twitch Stream while playing a game simultaneously. Simply add a link or stream to the Dragon Eye application and select the size, position, volume and transparency and start gaming. The hotkeys allow you to start/pause your video or set the volume.

NEXT-GEN HIGH DEFINITION AUDIO PROCESSOR

Audio Boost 4 is powered by an EMI-shielded High Definition audio processor with built-in DAC, making sure you enjoy the purest sound quality in both stereo and surround sound.

NAHIMIC: SOUND THAT PUSHES THE LIMITS OF REALITY

Nahimic Sound Technology has been famed for its quality and precision in projects undertaken by the Military and the Aeronautics Industry. Their experience in reflecting surround sound at the most immersive level allows you as a gamer to experience the next level in sound & gameplay. Unique features, including a sound tracker which visually shows where the enemies are making noise in game, truly allow you to get the upper hand on the battlefield.

Only MSI products are equipped with VR Boost. When using a VR headset, you want to have a smooth experience. Traditional USB ports can suffer signal drops, significantly impacting performance of connected devices. VR Boost is a smart chip that ensures a clean and strong signal to a VR optimized USB port, giving you an enjoyable VR experience.

Retail Packaging

As you can see, the packaging is quite eye catching in a shiny silver. The front shows a nice picture of the board and a few details about chipset and CPU line. Very good for the shelf, all the info you need and easy to see. Turning it over gives a lot more detail, with a layout of the board and rear I/O panel. There’s a convenient front cover that opens to a list of some features on the left and gives you a peek at the motherboard on the right. Easy to tell if the Titanium will meet your requirements for performance and connectivity by reading the box.

Retail Package- Front

Retail Package – Rear

Retail Package- Open

Retail Package- Inside

Accessories

Once inside you’ll find it’s divided into two separate boxes. One for the motherboard and one for the accessories. The board sits snugly in its box on top of a thin piece of foam. There is no anti-static bag but there is a hard plastic cover that keeps the board from jostling around during transport. One thing though, MSI didn’t skimp on the accessories – along with the usual suspects like a manual and installation disc, they have included an SLI bridge and six very good-looking SATA cables. They’re clear with bright silver colored wire which goes with the Titanium theme very well. Another nice addition is the fold out leaflet that details the motherboard and rear I/O panel. I actually used it a few times, my bench is setup with the rear I/O to the wall and with the plastic shroud on I had a hard time locating the USB ports. This at least gave me a place to start.

Accessories

Accessories

The MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM

The Xpower Titanium has a very typical layout. I was surprised at the lack of additional LED/RGB anywhere on the motherboard. Aside from the EZ Debug LEDs and the sound section border the board is pretty dark. With the RGB demand the way it is, I was somewhat expecting the “flagship” X370 motherboard would have at least the PCH and IO shroud lit in some fashion. The board does have LED connectivity for additional RGB strips or peripheral control just nothing on the board itself.

MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM Front

MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM Rear

A Closer Look

The PCIe area houses the two M.2 M Key type connectors. The upper one with the Steel Armor supports PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA 6Gb/s NVMe drives while the bottom has support for PCIe 2.0 x4 and SATA 6Gb/s. You’ll see two of the three full size PCIe 3.0 slots have the Steel Armour as well. These two slots support the SLI or CrossfireX in a PCIe3 x8/x8 configuration. There’s also an additional 6-pin PCIe power connection here. This helps deliver extra voltage to the PCIe slots when running a multiple-card setup. I should also mention, the top most PCIe 3.0 slot is well spaced to accommodate large air coolers.

Here’s a couple more angles of the Titanium showing off the Debug LED readout. As I said earlier, it’s a very nice addition to any motherboard. One thing that’s very eye catching is the Steel Armour on the DIMM slots. These ones are what appear to be chrome. They’re very shiny and reflective compared to the PCIe armor. In the upper-right side of the board we see the 8-pin CPU power connection along with an additional 4-pin. The extra 4-pin connection isn’t necessary for operation. It’s there for additional power when really pushing things past their limit.

Motherboard – Upper Left

Motherboard – Upper Right

Moving from left to right across the bottom of the motherboard we find many of the onboard I/O connections such as the front panel audio, a couple of USB2 and even a USB3.1 Gen2 type C connector. Alongside the power and reset buttons we find the “Game Boost” hardware control knob. Just like Nigel’s amp in the classic movie Spinal Tap “this one goes to 11.” Giving you the ability to OC by simply turning the dial for that extra boost when you need it. Located on this corner we’ll also find the BIOS Flashback+ button. Using the appropriate USB slot and a properly labelled BIOS file you can flash the BIOS without even having a CPU in the motherboard.

Motherboard – Lower Left

Motherboard – Lower Right

Here we have the rear I/O panel. Moving from left to right we have a PS2 and two USB2.0 connectors for mouse and keyboard connections. Next up is the Clear CMOS button and the designated Flashback+ USB2.0 port. This motherboard also supports video out when using one of the upcoming AM4 APUs with an HDMI and Display Port. Next we have four USB 3.1 Gen1 ports with the two under the Intel LAN port being the VR Ready ports to support your virtual reality headset. Between them and the Audio ports on the far right we have two more USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports in type “A” and type “C”connections. Spinning the motherboard 180° will finish off our internal I/O connections with 6 SATA 6Gb/s, a U.2 connector and two more USB 3.1 connectors. The second one is just out of the frame to the right, next to the 24-pin EATX power connection.

Rear I/O

SATA, U.2 Port and USB3

Stripping the MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM

The MSI X370 XPOWER has a 10-phase power section as you can see here. I didn’t have any overheating issues or throttling running at 4.0 GHz with 1.4 V. The heatsinks and thermal pads made very good contact with the MOSFETs and did a great job of transferring the heat. MSI is using Nikos PK616BA and PK632BA MOSFETs with five IR (International Rectifier) doublers located on the back of the motherboard. To control this power there’s a Dual Phase IR 35201 Digital Controller near the 12 V EPS connectors.

VRM, Socket Area

Heatsink Contact

Digital Voltage Controller

NIKOS High/Low Fets

For Audio we have the Realtek ALC1220 CODEC and a handful of Gold Chemicon caps isolated from the board by the LED strip for improved signal integrity.

Chemicon Caps

Realtek ALC1220

Below is a slide show of the other miscellaneous integrated circuit chips on the MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM.

UEFI BIOS and Overclocking Software

MSI’s Click BIOS5 is very smooth and the mouse is quite responsive. Even though I’m not as familiar with MSI’s BIOS setup I found it quite easy to navigate. Below you’ll see the Easy and Advanced screens along with some of the main screens off the Advanced section.

On to the OC section which needed a few more pictures. Here we have all the main ingredients for overclocking your CPU and memory. The OC section contains most options and voltages you need on one page from multipliers and memory speed to the main voltages. There’s also a great addition that is labelled “Memory Try It” a very easy way to set up your RAM without using XMP. This is great when your DDR4 XMP doesn’t really suit the parameters of the CPU. In the OC section you’ll also find the “DIGITALL” power section for LLC and some of the higher power settings as well as the DRAM timings section. This last section has been greatly expanded since the early days of AM4.

I’ve included some pics of the software included with the MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM. As always we have the MSI command center for In-Windows overclocking and system monitoring. MSI has also included a utility for creating Windows 7 installation media with the needed USB3 and XHCI drivers.

We’ll perform our usual set of benchmarks which tests rendering, memory performance, and single/multi-threaded CPU performance. For 2D benchmarks we’ll use SuperPi 1M and 32M and wPrime 32M and 1024M. For rendering it’s Cinebench R11.5 and R15. Memory performance is checked against AIDA64. For encoding, we use x265 (HWBOT Version) and PoV Ray. A more real-world test is included in 7zip. Testing is performed with the CPU at 4GHz to eliminate any inherent differences in stock BIOS options. Memory speed is DDR4 2933 MHz, unless otherwise specified.

As you’ll see below the MSI Xpower performance level is right where it should be. No real surprises here. You’ll have to take some of the numbers from the Gigabyte board with a grain of salt. They were run before AIDA64 had proper support for Ryzen.

Legacy CPU Benchmarks – Super Pi 1M and 32M, WPrime 32M and 1024M

SuperPi 1M

SuperPi 32M

WPrime 32M and 1024M

Judging by the numbers above the MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM is within a few percent of the competition and performs as it should. Choosing an X370 motherboard will really come down to the features you want and price since to date, performance wise, there really hasn’t been a clear leader.

Pushing the Limits

Like most other boards I’ve reviewed, the MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM hit 4025 MHz on the Ryzen 1700X. It seems to be fairly stable at this level, running Cinebench R15 without issue. Booting at 4050 MHz happened, but I couldn’t complete Cinebench R15 at this speed and keep the voltage within limits. I also worked the RAM speed up to 3333MHz just to show it can be done.

Cinebench R15 and R11.5 at 4025 MHz

Here’s something you might find interesting. I worked the sub-timings down for the 3333MHz DRAM clock and at 4.0 GHz on the 1700X I scored better than I did at 4025MHz .

DRAM 3333 tight timings

Firestrke, before and after.

Firestrike 4,000 MHZ DRAM 2933MHz

Firestrike 4025 MHZ DRAM 3333 MHz

Conclusion

The MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM is a well-rounded board with a lot of features. The power section is robust enough to push any AMD Ryzen 7 CPU to its limits on ambient cooling and remain cool while doing so. Tons of storage and USB connectivity as well. My only reservation is the price point. At $259.99 currently at newegg.com which puts it in the top price range for the AMD AM4 X370 motherboards.

Being in the upper price range and comparing it to its competition, I felt there were a couple of things missing. The lack of LED lighting on the motherboard seems so out of place with today’s market. Just about everything has RGB lighting from power supplies to fans I’m surprised the Titanium was left so dark. Next on my list is an external baseclock generator. This isn’t something that is necessary for overclocking the AM4 platform but it’s still nice to have and useful for fine tuning memory speeds.

Overall it’s still a great motherboard and unique in its own right with the silver finish and chrome accents. Even though I feel the price is a bit high for what you get, the MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM will get the job done and I can still give it the Overclockers approval !

]]>http://www.overclockers.com/msi-x370-xpower-gaming-titanium-motherboard-review/feed/0AMD THREADRIPPER AND RYZEN3http://www.overclockers.com/amd-threadripper-and-ryzen3/
http://www.overclockers.com/amd-threadripper-and-ryzen3/#respondThu, 13 Jul 2017 18:43:53 +0000http://www.overclockers.com/?p=106262The last few months have seen a flurry of CPU releases as the RED and BLUE teams go toe to toe, vying for their piece of the mainstream PC market"pie". Today AMD has announced the pricing and availability for additional CPUs including the long awaited THREADRIPPER aimed directly at the HEDT ( High End Desk Top) segment. This niche of the enthusiast market has been dominated by Intel for years but I have a feeling that's all about to change. Read More

]]>The last few months have seen a flurry of CPU releases as the RED and BLUE teams go toe to toe, vying for their piece of the mainstream PC market”pie”. Today AMD has announced the pricing and availability for additional CPUs including the long awaited Threadripper aimed directly at the HEDT (High End Desk Top) segment. This niche of the enthusiast market has been dominated by Intel for years but I have a feeling that’s all about to change.

The new Threadripper 1950X is AMD’s top dog in this segment, is going to offer 16 cores and 32 threads, quad channel memory and 64 PCIe lanes with a base clock of 3.4 GHz/4.0 GHz with precision boost. I find the pricing on this CPU, in my opinion, to be aimed directly at Intel’s newest i9 7900X 10C/20T CPU. Both of these CPUs cater to the same market and both have the same suggested retail price of $999.00 USD. The advantage here goes to Threadripper 1950X coming in at the same price but offering an additional 12 threads. In multi-threaded work loads that’s a huge gain.

Next in AMD’s stable is the Threadripper 1920X with 12 cores, 24 threads and 3.5 GHz base speed with a 4.0 GHz precision boost for a suggested $799 USD. As with the 1950X we still have the quad channel ram and 64 PCIe lanes accommodating up to four graphics cards. The Threadripper CPUs are going to require the new TR4 socket based motherboards equipped with the X399 chipset with availability in early August according to AMD.

Below I’ve included a YouTube video released by AMD highlighting the new Ryzen 3 CPUs and Threadripper series. Around the two minute mark Robert Hallock demos the new Threadripper CPUs going head to head against the i9 7900X in Cinebench R15. He didn’t give any specifics as to clock speeds or memory but I’m assuming they were all at stock. Just to summarize for you, the i9 7900X returned a score of 2100 CB and the TR 1920X had a score of 2400 CB and the TR 1950X came back with a whopping score just over 3000 CB. How’s that for price to performance?

CPU

CORES/ THREADS

SPEED

PRICE

Ryzen Threadripper 1950X

16C/32T

3.4 GHz/4.0 GHz

$999.00

Ryzen Threadripper 1920X:

12C/24T

3.5 GHz/4.0 GHz

$799.00

Ryzen 3 1300X

4C/4T

3.5 GHz/3.7 GHz

TBA

Ryzen 3 1200

4C/4T

3.1 GHz/3.4 GHz

TBA

AMD RYZEN 3

The Ryzen 3 line according to AMD is poised to get more people into the Ryzen family at an affordable price. Funny though that the one thing they left out. The price. The good news is you won’t have to wait long to find out since Ryzen3 CPUs will be on the shelves July 27th and already have AM4 motherboard support in the x370 and B350 chipsets. Both Ryzen 3 desktop processors are 4 core, 4 thread CPUs. The Ryzen 3 1300X gives you a base speed of 3.5 GHz and a boost to 3.7 GHz, while the Ryzen 3 1200 comes in at 3.1 GHz and 3.4 GHz boost. With the right pricing these could be poised as the next “bargain gamer” for those looking to get into the PC gaming scene.

Looks like the next few weeks are going to be exciting times with AMD’s latest shot across the bow.

]]>http://www.overclockers.com/amd-threadripper-and-ryzen3/feed/17Noctua Accessories Reviewhttp://www.overclockers.com/noctua-accessories-review/
http://www.overclockers.com/noctua-accessories-review/#respondThu, 13 Jul 2017 18:09:25 +0000http://www.overclockers.com/?p=106117Noctua released a lot of items in May, including the NA-SAV3 and NA-SAV4 vibration isolators, the NA-SAC5, where SATA powers a fan, and the NA-FC1 a PWM fan controller. We will look at each of these accessories (and the kit) in turn. Features of the Noctua NA-SAV3 & SAV4 From… Read More

]]>Noctua released a lot of items in May, including the NA-SAV3 and NA-SAV4 vibration isolators, the NA-SAC5, where SATA powers a fan, and the NA-FC1 a PWM fan controller. We will look at each of these accessories (and the kit) in turn.

Features of the Noctua NA-SAV3 & SAV4

Fans installed with standard fan screws can transmit minute vibrations to the PC case, which can lead to annoying resonance noises. Switching standard fan screws for NA-SAV4 mounts can drastically reduce these structure-borne noises by effectively decoupling the fan from the PC case.

Extra soft and highly tear-proof

The use of premium-grade silicone makes the NA-SAV4 mounts both extra soft and highly tear-proof, allowing them to combine efficient decoupling with excellent longevity and ease of use.

Double-side design

Compared to conventional single-side anti-vibration mounts, the NA-SAV3’s double-side design makes them much easier to work with in space-restricted environments or placements where the fan’s mounting holes are difficult to reach.

Flat case-side end for a clean look

While double-sided anti-vibration mounts like the NA-SAV2 or NA-SAV3 are convenient to install in space-restricted environments, some users prefer the clean appearance of single-sided designs. Therefore, the NA-SAV4 mounts are flush with the case panel and thus look tidier from the exterior.

5 defined pawls

Thanks to its five defined, numbered pawls, the NA-SAV4 mounts are convenient to install even with 10, 14, 15 or 20mm deep fans (e.g. NF-A4x10, NF-A9x14, NF-A6x15, NF-A4x20) or 25mm fans with closed corners.

Compatible with all Noctua fans and many third-party fans

The NA-SAV4 mounts are ideal for the vibration-free installation of all current Noctua fans (including redux and industrialPPC models) as well as many third-party fans.

Retail Packaging

Opened, we can see many isolators, lying on top of an instruction manual, which is available online.

Open Boxes

Examining the Noctua NA-SAV3 & SAV4

As measured, the Noctua NA-SAV3 is a little over 3 inches long, about 8+ cm, 6+ cm from flange to tip. The NA-SAV4 is 2.5’ long, 6+ cm – close to their specs.

For comparison, we have an NA-SAV4, an NA-SAV3 and an NA-SAV2. The purpose of a vibration isolator is to hold the fan to a flat surface, which these do on the left side with the narrow cleft for the metal case and the wider cleft for the near flange of the fan. Sandwiched between is a rubber pancake – hard rubber in the case of the SAV2, soft silicone rubber in the case of the SAV3 and SAV4. The numbered pawls are attached to the far flange. But attaching them is optional, as you can see from the SAV2.

SAV4, SAV3 and SAV2

Far flange and near flange? Fans have two flanges. Most fans that enthusiasts use – even fans with closed corners – have near flanges with a shelf that will accept the shoulder of a vibration isolator. The SAV2 is a classic example of this. But fans made for industrial clients may not have such a shelf. Their closed corners are tubes that allow a screw to go down quickly, with no impediments. This allows for rapid installation of the fan. They look like this:

Open/Closed Corner Fans

Noctua NA-SAV3 and NA-SAV4 are compatible with closed corner fans that do not have a shelf on the near flange. Noctua in fact provided a nice diagram on how the various pawls work in fans like these.

Pawls

Here we have a 15 mm fan with the pawls engaged (the fan is an NF-aa12x15).

NF-A12x15

Here is the 20 mm NF-A4x20 with multiple NA-SAV3’s.

NF-A4X20

The NF-A14 with some NA-SAV3’s. Note the stub-like vibration isolator. That one comes stock, included with the main 25 mm Noctua fans.

NF-A14 with Stock Vibration Isolator + SAV4’s

Finally we have the NF-A20, which is 30 mm thick. As you can see, the SAV4 handles it with ease.

NF-A20

If your isolator snaps when you pull it through the near flange, stop right there. You can use it like a SAV2 or a stock vibration isolator. If you pull the SAV3 or SAV4 through the far flange and later decide to take it out it can break when you pull it (top pieces in the image below). If you take it out of the far flange but leave the end hanging free, off at an angle, you will still break the vibration isolator when you pull it out (middle pieces). It is only when you pull it free of the far flange but reinsert it in the far screw hole without engaging a pawl that you can remove this vibration isolator without breaking it (bottom part of the composite image).

NA-SAV4 Pieces

Finally, a word on installation. In the next three diagrams Noctua show you how to install a fan with an SAV3. This can be found in the installation manual (available online). In fact, unlike most products these Noctua installation manuals are very helpful, containing lot of information you will find quite useful.

Pricing, Availability and Competitors

The Noctua NA-SAV3 is available here from Amazon at $7.95. The NA-SAV3 is available here for the same price. The Noctua NA-SAV3 is available from Newegg here for $7.95. Also for $7.95 the NA-SAV4 is available here. As noted above, there are 16 mounts per package.

I have personally tried most of the vibration isolators for sale. For years I have been recommending a competitor that cost more than $4 for a set of four. No longer. These cost half as much. Below we can see some competitor silicone rubber vibration isolators. They are not as good because their butt ends can get in the way of a close-fitting dust filter. The Noctua NA-SAV4 allows for a close-in dust filter.

NA-SAV4 and its Competitors

Conclusions on the Noctua NA-SAV3 & SAV4

Noctua has the reputation of producing top-of-the-line products at premium prices. Perhaps it is surprising that they made vibration isolators that cost half as much as the competition while the isolators are at least as good as the best and for some applications better – the best there is.

Vibration isolators can be made from hard rubber or silicone. The silicone is softer and does a much better job of reducing vibrations.

Do not dismiss vibration isolators as a toy. I once converted an expensive case from a noise generator to a silent wonder with four vibration isolators. So this addition is welcome.

Another difference between the Noctua isolators and most of its hard rubber competitors and different from all of the other soft silicone competitors is that the Noctua isolators do not just hook onto the near flange of a fan. They can also hook onto the far flange. This makes a difference with industrial fans, where previously your only option was steel screws. Now you can use soft silicone, and turn a growling monster to a purring kitten.

The Noctua NA-SAV3 & SAV4 are tear-resistant. Sure, they can be torn as we saw above. But that is a fact of all vibration isolators. From personal experience I can tell you that the hard rubber isolators routinely rip when you try to take them out. Some rip as you are trying to install them. Perhaps you could build a vibration isolator around a cord that would make the whole thing nearly impossible to tear. But that would be too expensive to buy. Better to have extra.

Overall the Noctua NA-SAV3 & SAV4 are the best anti vibration mounts you can buy, and they are less expensive than their competitors.

Noctua NA-SAV3 & SAV4 Pros

Made of Soft Silicone

Cost less than competing silicone vibration isolators

Routinely Grip on Near Flange

For Closed Corner Fans, can Grip on Far Flange

Pawls are Numbered for Ready Reference

Tear-Resistant

Installation Manual is Useful

Installation Manual is Online

Available in double-ended form (NA-SAV3) for installing fans in tight places

Single-ended form (NA-SAV4) is flat to avoid interfering with such accessories as a close-in dust filter

Noctua NA-SAV3 & SAV4 Cons

None

NA-SAC5 Review

Features

The NA-SAC5 is a fully sleeved S-ATA to 4-pin power adapter cable. It is compatible with both 3-pin and 4-pin fans and allows them to be powered directly from the power supply’s SATA connectors. Combined with the NA-SYC1 y-cables (available separately), it is ideal for powering multiple high-wattage fans without risking damage to the motherboard fan header.

Specifications

Retail Packaging

The NA-SAC5 comes in standard Noctua Accessory boxes. Here we see the front and back of these boxes, with a peek at the sides.

NA-SAC5 Boxes Front and Back

Inside we see a bubble wrap bag with the adapter spilling out. I cranked up the brightness of this picture so you could see the contents of the box. The inside is really a lot darker.

NA-SAC5 Box Open

A Closer Look at the NA-SAC5

The SAC5 is a straightforward adapter about a foot long.

The Noctua NA-SAC5

It has a SATA power plug on one end (note the tight sleeving) . . .

NA-SAC5 SATA End

. . . and a PWM fan receptacle on the other (note that the end of the sleeving is neatly shrink-wrapped). Because of the way fan connectors are made, this socket is compatible with 3-pin, fixed speed fans — also known as voltage-controlled fans.

NA-SAC5 PWM End

Thanks to Noctua for supplying the adapter and thanks to Jakob for answering all my questions on a large number of Noctua products.

Pricing and Availability

Conclusion

You could simply note that an adapter is an adapter, ho-hum. But this is a well-constructed adapter. Trust a reviewer to care about long-lasting adapters. Also, this is a SATA-to-PWM adapter. Finding SATA on one end is new. Finding PWM on the other is nice.

One disappointment for an admitted control freak: this adapter does not report the RPM of its fan to the motherboard. Below is an example of what I mean. The 3:4-pin adapter in the picture has a yellow line that snakes off to report its RPM. Maybe Noctua will release and NA-SAC6 at some point.

NA-SAC5 + 3-pin adapter

Overall, though, this is one tough adapter. Nice to have.

Pros

SATA power

PWM at one end, compatible also with 3-pin fans

Fully sleeved

Well-constructed, tough

Cons

None

Nice to Have

An RPM line would have been great.

Noctua NA-FC1 Review

Features

The NA-FC1 is a compact, highly flexible controller for 4-pin PWM fans that can both work on its own for manual speed reduction and also work in tandem with the automatic motherboard fan control. By adjusting the NA-FC1’s speed control dial, users can either manually set a PWM duty cycle from 0 to 100% or reduce the PWM duty cycle supplied by PC motherboards in order to have the fans running slower than the automatic motherboard fan control would allow. While the brightness of the orange status LED provides visual feedback on the current dial setting, the push button allows the NA-FC1 to be switched into “no stop” mode, which prevents the fan from falling below a speed of 300rpm. Thanks to the supplied 3-way split cable and power supply adaptor, up to 3 fans can be controlled simultaneously.

The Noctua PR guy also tells me they have tested the FC1 with 100 fans! Now, granted, these were Noctua fans which don’t draw much current, but you get the idea that the FC1 will control all the PWM fans that will fit in your case.

NA-FC1 Boxes, Kit and Close-Up

The NA-FC1 comes in standard Noctua accessory boxes. Unlike all of Noctua’s other accessory boxes, these are somewhat bulgey. Hmm. Why?

NA-FC1 Boxes, Front & Back

When you flip open the lid of a box you see the installation manual. If you lose it or if you want to see bigger diagrams, it is online. Next we see a cardboard cover with the NA-FC1 in a little pocket. Then we note from the drawing that there seem to be more toys in this toybox, so we turn the cover over.

Under the cover we see a foam cutout. Inside the cutout are the . . . accessory’s accessories.

NA-FC1 Box, Open

NA-FC1 Insides, Upside Down

When you unfold everything, here is the FC1 kit: the NA-SC1 three-way PWM splitter, the NA-FC1 PWM controller, the AN-AC4 SATA power source and the NA-EC1 PWM extension cable. So, altogether you get four items in this kit. Note the attractive close-fitting sleeving of the cables.

FC1 Kit

If you choose SATA, here is the power source for your fans.

NA-AC4 SATA Power Connector

You have seen this PWM extension cord before. It is also sold separately. If you choose to use this, the power source for your fan(s) will be the motherboard header. Motherboard headers are normally limited to one amp, or 12 watts.

NA-EC1 PWM Extension Cable

NA-EC1 PWM Extension Cable

This three-way PWM fan-splitter reports the RPM of one of the fans. Reporting more would confuse the motherboard.

NA-SC1 PWM Splitter

Finally, we will look at close-up pictures of the FC1 itself. As you can see, it both receives and gives PWM control.

NA-FC1 Body

NA-FC1 Back

Let us begin with the FC1 getting its power from a SATA socket of your PSU and the PWM control from your motherboard. You use the AC4 for that. A diagram of this setup is below. It is from the installation manual, which is one of many examples of really useful installation manuals from Noctua. The power and control run from right to left, with the connections to fans at the left. If you expand the drawing you can read the labels on the elements.

FC1 Assembly Drawing Power from PSU via SATA

Another setup is to use a connection to the motherboard only. You use the EC1 for this job. This setup draws power and control solely from the motherboard. The diagram is below. If you click on it and expand it you can read the labels on the three pieces that go into the setup.

FC1 Assembly Drawing Power from MB

An interesting aspect of this is how Noctua handled the plugs. In the first setup the FC1 gets its power from the PSU. Because it does, it does not need 12V power from the motherboard. So the AC4 does not have a 12V line in the plug. The first picture is a close-up of that plug. There is a ground line, though. That allows the FC1 to share its ground with the motherboard. If you have heard a PA hum, you have heard what happens when electronics do not share a ground.

The EC1, of course, gets its power from the motherboard. It contains that 12V line, as the second picture shows. Note also the Noctua colors (available online): the black line at the bottom is the shared ground. The next up is the yellow 12V line, exactly like a “Molex” 4-pin non-PWM connector. The green third line is for RPM, and the top blue wire is for PWM.

Absent 12V Line

Plug for PWM Extension

The FC1 has several functions, indicated in the diagrams and charts below. The first shows the anatomy of the NA-FC1. Twisting the speed dial (1) raises and lowers the RPM of your PWM fans (it cannot control 3-pin fans; I tested it). The speed indicating LED (2) changes in intensity with the RPM changes; it goes from nothing to full brightness to indicate zero to 100% PWM duty. You press the No-Stop button (3) to put a 300 RPM floor under the speed of your fan. When the No-Stop feature is engaged an indicator LED (4) will shine green. Finally, the FC1 has PWM input and output (5) and (6).

NA-FC1 PWM Controller

Testing the NA-FC1

Noctua has provided us with some diagrams (in their installation manual) showing RPM responses without and with their No-Stop function engaged. The speed dial adjusts the PWM response of the NA-FC1 to the motherboard’s PWM signal. The diagrams show notional fan speeds relating to the PWM %. What this means is that with the NA-FC1 plugged into the motherboard through either the NA-AC4 (SATA source) or NA-EC1 (motherboard source) the NA-FC1 will either pass the motherboard’s PWM control through to PWM fan(s) directly (dial twisted full to the right) or reduced by some amount, depending on where you turn the dial. You can drop the response down to nothing by turning the dial full to the left if you choose to do so.

With No-Stop Disabled

With No-Stop Activated

At the same time if the NA-FC1 receives no PWM signal it will operate like a freestanding PWM fan controller. As you turn the dial the fan speed increases. Basically the NA-FC1 varies the PWM% from zero to 100% and the fan speed increases.

I tested each of the four modes for you: without No-Stop, turning the dial and watching fan speeds go up smoothly with and without PWM input from the motherboard (two modes) and with No-Stop, turning the dial and watching fan speeds go up smoothly with and without PWM input from the motherboard (another two modes). Since the testing was qualitative, there are no Results charts to show you. But I did test the FC1 with PWM fans of differing manufacturers and differing max speeds, and I tested them with three-pin fans to make sure the output was PWM and not voltage. BTW — As we should expect with a PWM controller the voltage-controlled fans did not vary their speeds as I turned the dial.

Price and Availability

The NA-FC1 kit is available at Newegg for $19.95. It is not yet available from Amazon.

Conclusions

Although the NA-FC1 comes in an accessory box and is sold as an accessory (the NA stands for Noctua Accessory) it comes as a kit of four, an accessory with accessories. One of the sub-accessories — the NA-EC1 – is sold separately and has been available for some time. So the NA-FC1 is really a kit.

The NA-FC1 body itself is small. The PWM controllers that hook up to your motherboard to provide PWM control of your fans take up a whole slot in the 5.25” bay. The Noctua does the same thing but doesn’t take up a full-height 5.25” slot to do it. Since some cases come without a 5.25” bay this is useful: you can still use the Noctua in such cases.

The NA-FC1 is powerful. The kit comes with a NA-AC4, which allows it to draw power directly from your PSU through a SATA connector. You won’t have to depend on the limited power available through a header on your motherboard. Using the NA-AC4, the NA-FC1 can control lots of fans. Because the NA-FC1 can run so many fans at once you can use nothing but PWM fans in your system and still control them from the motherboard.

And the dial when you are using the motherboard? Why do you need it? Well, let’s say that you are using a fan with a max speed of 3000 RPM and you don’t want your system to get as loud as that. Using the NA-FC1 to temper the variable signal from your motherboard you could tune your fan from 0-3000 RPM to 0-2000 RPM. This capability is new, I think.

The NA-FC1 can function as a stand-alone PWM controller, drawing power from the motherboard — the NA-EC1 can connect to a three-pin header on the motherboard — or the PSU (through the NA-AC4). For example, if you use PWM fans for your case the NA-FC1 can modulate them. Nice.

Finally, while some fans have a minimum speed some fans just stop when the PWM % is too low. For PWM fans like these the No-Stop function will assure that there is a constant airflow. If you don’t need it you don’t care, but it’s nice to know that the NA-FC1 has your back if you do.

BTW – some devices other than fans operate on PWM. We will be seeing more PWM pumps, for example.

Bottom line: the NA-FC1 kit has everything you need in a PWM controller.

]]>http://www.overclockers.com/noctua-accessories-review/feed/0Noctua NF-A12x15 Fan Reviewhttp://www.overclockers.com/noctua-nf-a12x15-fan-review/
http://www.overclockers.com/noctua-nf-a12x15-fan-review/#respondWed, 21 Jun 2017 13:51:02 +0000http://www.overclockers.com/?p=105555Noctua has released a new 15 mm thick, named the NF-A12x15. It is designed to fit in skinny places and to provide relatively high static pressure. They faced challenges getting a fan this thin. For example, “For the 12cm NF-A12x15, a steel-reinforced motor hub and brass axle mount are being used in order to assure the required stability despite the fan’s 15mm thin profile.” Remember, Noctua guarantees their products out to six years and to make a thin fan last that long took some work. They also never made a fan this thin. As our press contact commented, “All of the new models are new form factors for us.” So let’s have a look at this, the newest entry into the slim fan derby: Read More

]]>Noctua has released a new 15 mm thick fan, named the NF-A12x15. It is designed to fit in skinny places and to provide relatively high static pressure. They faced challenges getting a fan this thin. For example, “For the 12cm NF-A12x15, a steel-reinforced motor hub and brass axle mount are being used in order to assure the required stability despite the fan’s 15mm “thin profile.” Remember, Noctua guarantees their products out to six years and to make a thin fan last that long took some work. They also never made a fan this thin. As our press contact commented, “All of the new models are new form factors for us.” So let’s have a look at this, the newest entry into the slim fan derby:

Introducing the Noctua NF-A12x15

Noctua says, “the NF-A12x15 is a highly optimized, premium quality quiet fan in size 120x15mm.” They go on a bit on their website but I wanted more details for you, the reader. So I asked where they think people will use this fan. What my contact said was we wanted to put the NF-A12x15:

“Basically everywhere a 25mm deep 120mm wouldn’t fit or would cause compatibility problems. One of the key examples would be low-profile down-draft CPU coolers like our own NH-L12, which will be updated with this fan later this year:

There are a lot of similar coolers from other manufacturers which also come with slim 120mm fans, so we expect that users who seek to replace these will also find the NF-A12x15 attractive. With some tower coolers, replacing a front-mounted 120x25mm fan with a 120x15mm one can help to improve RAM clearance.

With watercooling radiators, users sometimes have the issue that if they install them in the top or front of their cases with 120x25mm fans, either the radiator or fan will overhang the motherboard and possibly block some components. Using 120×15 can help here as well.

Similarly, clearance can also be increased in case fan applications or many other situations where you want to put a larger diameter, quiet fan but cannot fit 25mm thickness (think of adding a fan on a PCIe card, etc.).

Last but not least, we expect some demand from our non-PC industrial clients as well. There are a lot of applications where saving some space in order to build slimmer, more compact devices can be attractive.”

Metal-reinforced motor hub. With many larger-diameter slim fan designs, the shorter axis and bearing lead to a reduced running stability and lifespan. The NF-A12x15 uses a metal-reinforced motor hub, a measure typically found in high-speed industrial fans, in order to guarantee Noctua’s signature stability and longevity.

Flow Acceleration Channels. The NF-A12x15 impeller features suction side Flow Acceleration Channels. By speeding up the airflow at the crucial outer blade regions, this measure reduces suction side flow separation and thus leads to better efficiency and lower vortex noise.

Extensive cabling options. The fan’s short 20cm primary cable minimizes cable clutter in typical applications while the supplied 30cm extension provides extended reach when necessary. Both cables are fully sleeved. With the PWM version a 4-pin y-cable allows the connection of a second fan to the same PWM fan header for automatic control. With the FLX version the 3:4 pin adapter allows the connection of the fan directly to the power supply.

Noctua also advertises its six-year warranty. From personal experience and the testimony of a number of forum participants we can say that they have world-class customer service.

Unboxing

First we have a look at the boxes these fans come in. The front has the marketing points along with an embossed medallion that tells you that this is a 15 mm fan. The back repeats the marketing points as text in eight languages. You can find all of the NF-A12x15 specifications there. The front covers of the boxes open out to show you diagrams of their aerodynamic features, as well as giving you a window to see part of the fan itself.

Twin Boxes

Twin Boxes – Open

Inside we have the fan and its accessories snuggled in a recyclable plastic case. Here the case is laid on top of its cover – the same cover that we saw on the box in the second picture above, providing a window to glimpse the NF-A12x15.

Plastic Case

The NF-A12x15 FLX comes with a number of 3-pin accessories. Here we see, lying on an open copy of the Installation Manual, an NF-A12x15 FLX, an extension cable, a package of four standard fan screws, a Molex to 3-pin adapter, four double-ended soft silicon mounts designed to attenuate any stray vibrations, an LNA (a Low Noise Adapter, RC-10) and a ULNA (an Ultra Low Noise Adapter, RC-13) — you can’t tell which is which, but I have access to the original 3968×2232-pixel picture I took, and can read the labels. One thing about the four double-ended soft silicon mounts: you can trim off the ends if you don’t use them, leaving your case looking nice from the outside.

3-Pin accessories

The NF-A12x15 PWM comes with various 4-pin accessories. Here you can see a four-pin Y-cable. It has the RPM-reporting line missing from one limb. This is the preferred construction since it sends a single RPM signal, thus refraining from confusing the motherboard. Next is a 4-Pin extension cable, a package of four standard fan screws, four double-ended soft silicon mounts, the fan in its shelter and a 4-Pin LNA (RC-7). Nice set. It all sits on an installation manual which is available online.

PWM Accessories

Outside the sheltering case, a pair of NF-A12x15 PWM fans stand up for your inspection. These are solid fans. You can feel their solidity when you take them out and handle them.

Twin Fans

The next image shows the edge of the NF-A12x15 FLX is really only 15 mm thick. The edges are slotted. We have seen this before in thin fans, so the rib is there to improve stability. According to Noctua, “The slots on the outside of the frame are to make it more rigid and to make sure it doesn’t warp in the cool-off phase after injection molding.” So now we’re into manufacturing technology.

15mm thick

A closeup of the fan shows the various features of the AAO Frame – the vibration-absorbing corners, the stepped inlets and the inner surface micro-structures. You will also notice the small distance from the end of the blade to the inner surface of the frame. Having such close tolerances requires strict attention to quality control. Most fans leave a lot more room for manufacturing variation. Finally, notice the shape of the hub – that of a short cylinder, or a built-up pancake. That is the bearing. As my Noctua contact says, “The metal reinforcements of the NF-A12x15 don’t concern the motor as such, it’s just the impeller hub that’s reinforced. You’re right that the [other OEM] uses a similar design, but so do hundreds of other high-speed fans from various manufacturers.” Further, he noted, “You need to get the tolerances down if you want to get good performance in such a dense form factor. This is one of the reasons why we went for the metal reinforced hub because it helps to keep things nice and balanced even with such small tolerances.”

Frame Closeup

Noctua does not claim any special blade angle. However, I inspected several fans for blade angle. The NF-A12x15 seemed to have a similar blade angle to the NF-F12, the San Ace and the Gentle Typhoon, all seen below. They were distinctly shallower than the NF-S12A or the Slip Stream. This shallow blade angle is similar to a low gear on your bicycle or car, with the steeper blade angle being more like a high gear: those fans push air faster but have a relatively lower static pressure. However, I am still thinking about how to measure blade angle, and I’d welcome your thoughts in the comment section.

A view of the backside of the frame comes next. This side of the frame has a smooth exhaust expansion – no stepped slope here. Again you can see the inner surface micro-structures and the vibration-absorbing corners, this time with the whole shape in view. The impeller’s hub is 10 mm thick. At the hub the frame measures 4 mm thick, leaving 1 mm between the impeller and the hub, again showing good quality control. There are five struts connecting the hub to the frame, more than the normal three to four struts. This will aid in providing stability in a fan that is only 15 mm thick. Noctua’s spokesman said, “The five struts are for rigidity as well. To make it stiff enough with 4, the struts would have to me much thicker, so the overall impact on airflow would have been higher than with the 5 strut design we ended up going for.”

Exhaust Side

Setup for Testing

The fans were placed in a test stand, where their free air RPM was observed and their noise was assessed. The standard proxy for what you can hear is the Sound Pressure Level (SPL), measured in decibels and given a type A weighting (dBA). A silent room is about 30 dBA.

The ambient noise for this set of testing is 31 dBA. To measure noise levels that were softer, the Sound Pressure Level (SPL) was measured 10 cm from each fan. SPL was adjusted to 1 meter by subtracting 20 dB. The sound pressure meter is a Tenma 72-942. This fan tester has a microphone which is not accurate under 30 dBA. This is the limit of all but the most expensive SPL meters. At low levels sound measurement by extrapolation is not accurate, so that sound measurements are approximate.

The airflow was assessed using a standard measure, cubic feet per minute, or CFM. The air entered a sealed 8″x8″x8″ box (200+ mm on a side) where it was allowed to mix. The air left the box through an exhaust port, where it was measured with the vane head of an Extech AN100 anemometer, averaging 10 readings per fan setting. The fans were tested in an unobstructed state, with a metal mesh dust, on a 16 frame-per-inch radiator as a proxy for heatsinks and on a 30 FPI rad.

Results of Testing

There was little difference between free air and air impeded by a dust filter. As far as the NF-A12x15, the dust filter was hardly there. It turns out that this was no surprise to the folks at Noctua: “With all of the recent A-series models, we aim to have a very stable P/Q curve, so you’re right that you should see a lower drop in airflow when working against back pressure.” There being little difference between the NF-A12x15 FLX and the PWM without a LNA, the results were pooled. On the other hand, the results diverged between the PWM and FLX fans with LNA, so the averages were reported separately. All in all, you can see that the strong suit of the Noctua NF-A12x15 is quiet running.

In all three charts, fans with asterisks are slim fans.

With the 16 FPI rad results, there was a little more separation between the obstructed vs free-path results, but they stand out from their immediate neighbors as showing dips, or reduced unobstructed airflow. This is not a bad thing, though. It shows that compared to their neighbors they have pretty good static pressure. If we put the chart in order of unobstructed airflow, these fans would show their high flow through the 16FPI rad. I put in the NF-A12x15 FLX with UNLA because it can put air through a 16 FPI heatsink. You would use it in a heatsink only if you wanted a dead-silent rig. Since you might be looking to do just that, the NF-A12x15 FLX with UNLA was included here. The results of the PWM and FLX fans were very close so they were pooled for the airflow without and with the LNA.

Again the results of the PWM and non-PWM of the NF-A12x15 fans were very close so they were pooled for the airflow with and without the LNA. Again the fan with its ULNA was shown here because you might want a dead-silent rig.

Finally, we come to the issue of PWM control. Now, where there is a functional speed-reducing adapter we would expect the speed of the fan to be reduced at low PWM %. However, at the low end of the PWM of the Noctua NF-A12x15 PWM we get little reduction of speed, while as the PWM duty approaches and reaches 100% the speed diverges. This is exactly the way you would like a PWM fan to behave. RPM vs. PWM is graphically represented in the following chart:

The one thing that we can’t measure is the nature of the sound. The NF-A12x15 is like other fans from Noctua: it does not sound as loud as it measures. The SPL meter measures the sound pressure where it is sited. But sound pressure is not what you hear. You hear noise, and you can barely hear the sound the blades make as they whirl in the air. This is a quiet fan.

Pricing and Availability

Here is the MSRP for the Noctua NF-A12x15

NF-A12x15 PWM: EUR 19.90 / USD 19.90

NF-A12x15 FLX: EUR 19.90 / USD 19.90

As of this writing the NF-A12x15 is not available on Amazon or Newegg.

Conclusions on the Noctua NF-A12x15

Static pressure readings are nice to have, but all they really do is suggest how a fan might perform when blowing through restrictive environments. What you really want to know is how well will my fan push air through my cooler (in this case, it might be a rad)? When you take out the sleeve bearing fans what is closest to this fan is the $30 Noctua NF-A14 iPPC-3000 24V. And that is comparing the NF-A12x15 to 25mm thick fans. But this is a slim fan, and the pickings for those is, well, slim. In other words, you lose nothing if you go with this fan.

The Noctua NF-A12x15 is a fine fan, never mind that it is also a slim fan. They used airflow-enhancing features, close tolerances and a good rigid frame so that it would not warp – supporting those close tolerances. Noctua has gone all-out to make this a great fan.

They have also included a number of accessories so there is little or nothing left to buy. By including a LNA, they are in essence giving you a second fan. And the FLX having a UNLA, it’s like getting a third fan. When you look at the price, you are getting a great deal in a slim fan.

Overall, Noctua has built the NF-A12x15 as a slim fan to fit in tight places where a normal fan would not go. Better, they built a slim fan that would lose nothing in comparing it to normal thickness fans. Last but certainly not least, it’s a quiet fan, quieter than its competitors.

]]>http://www.overclockers.com/noctua-nf-a12x15-fan-review/feed/0Intel Skylake-X (i9 7900X) and Kaby Lake-X (i7 7740K) CPU Reviewhttp://www.overclockers.com/intel-skylake-x-i9-7900x-and-kaby-lake-x-i7-7740k-cpu-review/
http://www.overclockers.com/intel-skylake-x-i9-7900x-and-kaby-lake-x-i7-7740k-cpu-review/#respondMon, 19 Jun 2017 19:26:49 +0000http://www.overclockers.com/?p=105722It has been a long time coming since there was true competition in the CPU market. Intel, for the last several years and CPU generations (since 2006/Conroe based chips and later), have been pretty dominate over their competitor, AMD Read More

]]>It has been a long time coming since there was true competition in the CPU market. Intel, for the last several years and CPU generations (since 2006/Conroe-based chips and later), have been pretty dominant over their competitor, AMD. Instructions Per Clock (IPC) has always been heads above the rest. AMD’s lack of comparable IPC seems to have moved them in a direction of adding more cores and threads to compete, and at a lower price. Bang for your buck was second to none from Thuban all the way to Vishera based AMD CPUs. AMD finally stepped up to the plate and, for all intents and purposes, knocked one out of the park with their Zen architecture. Not only did they manage to catch up in IPC just a few percent behind in most single threaded tasks, but they poured on the cores and kept the price low. A wonderful thing for consumers and competition.

Cue a response from the boys in blue, Intel. While we have seen grumblings in our, and many other forums about Intel in a panic mode, I personally have to disagree. I am certain (guessing) Intel moved up some timetables, to get a more competitive product out, but I don’t picture the sleeping giant in a panic quite yet. To throw an analogy out there (no, not a car analogy!), it’s like putting in a pinch hitter to go against the lefty they put in from the bullpen. In other words, they are putting in the best man they have available for the job. Sure he may not have had time to stretch and warm up, but you can bet he was already on the team prior… he was moved into action a bit sooner than they may have wanted.

Anyway, enough about the state of the union, and on to Intel’s counter punch: Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X. What’s that you say? Kaby Lake-X? Yep, that’s right, starting off on the low end, Intel is, curiously, bridging the gap between their mainstream and HEDT platforms by putting a quad core with Hyperthreading (4c/8t) at the bottom of the product stack named, 7740K. In other words, a 7700K but based on the socket 2066 platform. There are more differences and will jump into those a bit later. Currently, at the top (there are other CPUs coming out with more threads, note), is the i9-7900X. The 10c/20t 7900X will now fall in the middle of the Skylake-X product stack with 12c/24t (i9-7920X), 14c/28t (i9-7940X), 16c/32t (i9-7960X), and finally the flagship 18c/36t part (i9-7980XE).

We have the 7900X and 7740K in our hands. We will compare it to the 6950X and the 7700K for both stock improvements and IPC. We will put it through our CPU testing suite as well as a few games to see how these CPUs perform! Please note, I was a bit limited on time with the CPUs arriving on the 17th.

Specifications and Features

Below is a list of specifications of our two new CPUs. On the left is the 7900X, while on the right is the 7740K. Both processors are based off the 14nm Tri-Gate 3D production, using a 64-bit instruction set. Both CPUs also support DDR4 2666 as the standard and up to 128 GB of RAM. The 7740K will be dual channel however and not able to reap the benefits of quad channel memory.

The 7900X comes with 10 cores and 20 threads with a base clockspeed of 3.3 GHz. This is a 300 MHz bump up over the i7-6950X. The max turbo frequency is going to be a stellar 4.5 GHz. With an improved Turbo Boost 3.0, this time around the max boost is done on TWO cores instead of one. I don’t have any information on the regular boost at this time. But I would imagine it to be cascading to less cores as the clocks go up just as was done in the past. The TDP remains the same at 140 W. The 7900K sports 44 on-CPU PCIe 3.0 lanes, with its little brothers getting less (28 lanes for the lower SL-X based CPUs). Outside of being based on Skylake, the 7900K adds AVX-512 instruction sets to the mix, the first of its kind for Intel.

One thing of note, that isn’t listed in the specifications is the 13.75 MB of L3 cache available. This is actually LESS than what was available on 6950X! At first glance this seems like a problem, however, Intel has “rebalanced the cache hierarchy” to have it work more efficiently with less latency. A bit more on that later.

The Kaby Lake-X based part, the 7740K, a 7700K built on socket 2066 bones, gets its base clock increased to 4.3 GHz (from 4.2 on the Kaby Lake part) and the boost remains the same at 4.5 GHz. There is increased TDP of 112 W compared to 91 W for KL. PCIe lane availability remains the same with 16 PCIe 3.0 available when using this CPU. Also something to note again is this base CPU SKU will still be dual channel. Not that it will be a loss, but its still mixing church and state in the HEDT platform as it has only run triple or quad channel since the X58/Nehalem days. Another important fact is the K L-X parts have their IGP disabled. You will need a discrete GPU for the platform.

The larger PCB and additional pads are said to give the 7740K some more overclocking headroom, but only time will tell on that one. There were a couple of early leaks on the 7900K showing it running Cinebench with an AIO cooler at 4.7 GHz 1.25 V. Temps were banging off the 100C throttling point though. If you want to push much past 4.5 GHz, seems as though custom water is in store, and perhaps a delid/re-TIM to go to the extreme. Yes, I said a delid and re-TIM. They went ahead and did NOT solder the IHS on either CPU. Maybe the 12C+ parts will, not sure. But it seems curious that the solder is gone, though we are still seeing pretty good overclocks. Not sure why they went this route and it will certainly irritate some, but the reality is the processor can run just fine within its specifications and seemingly well outside of them with what is currently done.

Intel i9-7900X and i7-7740K Specifications

# of Cores

10

4

# of Threads

20

8

Clock Speed

3.3 GHz

4.3 GHz

Max Turbo Frequency (3.0 and 2.0)

4.5 GHz (2 cores)

4.5 GHz (all cores)

Instruction Set

64-bit

64-bit

Instruction Set Extensions

SSE 4.1/4.2, AVX 2.0 AVX-512

SSE 4.1/4.2, AVX 2.0

Lithography

14 nm Tri-Gate 3D Transistors

14 nm Tri-Gate 3D Transistors

TDP

140 W

112 W

Thermal Solution Spec

PCA 2013D

PCA 2015D

Integrated Graphics

N/A

N/A

1KU Pricing

$999

$339

Memory Specifications

Max Memory Size

128 GB

128 GB

Memory Types

DDR4 2666

DDR4 2666

# of Memory Channels

4

2

ECC Memory Support

No

No

Expansion Options

PCI Express Revision

3.0

3.0

Max # of PCI Express Lanes

Up to 44 Lanes

16

PCIe Lane Configurations

2×16 / 4×8 on processor

1×16 / 2×8 on processor

Intel Data/Platform Protection Technology

Intel Device Protection w/Bootguard

Yes

Yes

Secure Key

Yes

Yes

OS Guard

Yes

Yes

Trusted Execution Technology

No

No

Execute Disable Bit

Yes

Yes

Anti-Theft Technology

Yes

Yes

Below is picture from the Intel press documents on the entire product stack. At this time, the 12-18 core parts will not be available. We can expect to see them in the coming months.

Core-X Series Processor Family and Features

Some of the ‘little guys’ at eight and six core, as well as the two Kaby Lake-X offerings.

Up to 10 percent faster multithreaded performance over previous generation

Up to 15 percent faster single-thread performance over previous generation

Below are some slides I picked out from an Intel presentation on the new CPU and chipset. The slides give us an idea of where Intel is coming from. There is parental bias I am sure, but it touches on how powerful and scalable it is, usage models, and even overclocking!

Obviously the High End DeskTop (HEDT) segment is made for those power users of a PC. Outside of the curious inclusion of Kaby Lake-X based CPUs with the fewest threads the platform has seen on it in years, each generation has given us faster CPUs, more threads, and generally more efficiently while doing so. Intel claims 10% faster multithreaded performance than the previous generation and up to 15% faster single-threaded. We will dig in later to see if there are IPC increases or if it is due to clockspeed only.

Intel still frames these CPUs in the Extreme Performance, Extreme Mega-Tasking, and dubbing it The Ultimate Platform. Seems like there is a use for everyone now. Speaking of uses, that 7740K – When you think about it, can be a cheaper stepping stone into the X299/Basin Falls platform with the potential to upgrade to more cores later/when needed. Gaming and Livestreaming is no problem here with all the threads there are to throw around.

Overclocking? They mention that too, offering Memory controller trim voltage control for higher and faster clocks, as well as PEG/DMI overclocking. Skylake-X processors still have the per-core overclocking and voltage control. If you are really pushing on the CPU and need some insurance in case you push too far, Intel offers the performance tuning protection plan for a small fee.

The slide below talks about the changes made to Intel’s Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 on the Skylake-X chips. Its latest implementation now chooses the best two cores on the die to reach maximum boost. This will help out with any dual threaded or single threaded application.

Improved Turbo Boost 3.0

We talked about the 13 MB of cache available on the 7900X SKU earlier and how that was a bit more than half of the 25 MB on the 6950X. Intel has changed how it works internally in order to achieve lower latency and overall better performance. In essence you are getting 5x more L2 (10 MB vs 2 MB) and less L3 (13.75 MB vs 25 MB). They have gone from 256 K of L2 private-local cache to 1 MB per core of the same. In theory this can reduce how often the slower L3 cache is hit since more L2 is available.

Re-balancing the Cache Hierarchy

A die shot of the 7900k from the Intel slide deck.

Die Map

Product Tour

Below are some pictures of the CPUs themselves. A couple of things to note: First the ever so slight difference between IHS on the two processors. Next, the thickness of the PCB. In the last picture you are seeing a head on view of the 7740K (right) and 7700K (left) PCBs… moving to K L-X it now uses the thicker PCB.

Processors in a box!

i9-7900X and i7-7740K

7700K now included

Bottom

More bottom

PCB thickness

Benchmarks and Test Systems

The data we have gathered will give us a great idea of its performance both at stock (no turbo), and matching clockspeeds to see IPC performance increases between Broadwell-E and Skylake-X as well as Kaby Lake and Kaby Lake-X.

Below are some pictures of the products used in the review. A special thanks goes out to our friends at G. Skill and ASUS for providing the RAM and Motherboard for review. G. SKill sent us a non-RGB (my choice) 4×8 GB DDR4 3600 MHz CL16 kit (not listed at their website yet in quad form), while ASUS sent the venerable Prime X299-Deluxe. I had zero problems on the platform in my testing. ASUS already had another BIOS ready to go (likely one today/tomorrow as well) and the RAM worked with simply enabling XMP. I am sure there will be some teething issues, but in my extremely limited time with the platform both at stock and overclocked, I didn’t have an issue.

Benchmarks Used

All benchmarks were run with the motherboard being set to optimized defaults (outside of some memory settings which had to be configured manually). When “stock” is mentioned along with the clockspeed, it does not reflect the boost clocks, only the base clocks. I tested this way as it seems motherboards are different in how they work out of the box. The MSI I have sets all cores at the max turbo (4.5 GHz) for the CPU while other boards follow the Intel Turbo specification. So, it is more of a “run what you brung” type of testing for stock speeds.

After testing, we then shifted to comparing the 7700K and 7740K at the same clockspeeds and memory settings. This testing will flesh out the difference in Instructions Per Clock (IPC) between the two.

All CPU tests were run at their default settings unless otherwise noted.

Gaming Tests

All game tests were run at 1920×1080 and 2560×1440. Please see our testing procedures for details on in-game settings.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Crysis 3

Dirt: Rally

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalations

CPU Tests

Stock testing using the AIDA64 Engineer software is below. Please note, again, samples were heavily delayed in getting to the Finalwire team so these tests are not optimized for the AVX-512 instruction set and when it’s used/not used. So some numbers can be a bit different here when they get the final tweaks put in. As it stands I used their latest beta they suggested for the most accurate results at the time. We can see the results are pretty close together here with the higher clocked, newer chips taking a 2-3% lead across most of these tests. Others, like PhotoWorxx, we can see likely hasn’t been optimized as it is coming through a bit slower on the new CPUs.

AIDA64 CPU

AIDA64 CPU Benchmarks – Raw Data

CPU

Queen

Ph Worxx

Zlib

AES

Hash

i7 6950X @ 3.0 GHz

96796

30694

752.4

38615

9230

i9 7900K @ 3.3GHz

107670

40056

903.4

45434

9938

i7 7740K @ 4.3 GHz

52452

28239

387.4

19604

4934

i7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz

51215

28584

381.8

19117

4805

FPU is showing results a bit all over the place from the Skylake-X chip losing by 10% to beating out its predecessor by over 15%. The 7740K results are close as expected since it’s the same CPU with higher clocks.

FPU Tests

AIDA64 FPU Benchmarks – Raw Data

CPU

VP8

Julia

Mandel

SinJulia

i7 6950X @ 3.0 GHz

6995

58484

31042

10908

i9 7900K @ 3.3GHz

7561

69040

36856

10018

i7 7740K @ 4.3 GHz

7862

36604

19698

5185

i7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz

7850

35630

19174

5053

The memory test shows a tale of different memory speeds as some of these were recorded at 3200 MHz (6950x) while the rest were 3600 Mhz on the new platform.

AIDA64 – Memory

AIDA64 Memory Benchmarks – Raw Data

CPU

Read

Write

Copy

Latency

i7 6950X @ 3.0 GHz

62180

64534

59711

57.2

i9 7900K @ 3.3GHz

88078

53270

72001

70.5

i7 7740K @ 4.3 GHz

49308

52048

45308

40.7

i7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz

50469

50123

46718

42.2

Moving on to some real world benchmarks, outside of an outlier in x265, results are as expected and pretty close together.

7Zip, x265 (Hwbot), POVRay, and Cinebench R11.5/R15

Cinebench, 7zip, POVRay and x265 Benchmarks – Raw Data

CPU

7Zip

CB R11.5

CB R15

POVRay

x265 (HWBOT)

i7 6950X @ 3.0 GHz

51276

19.26

1791

3569.4

35.17

i9 7900K @ 3.3GHz

49806

19.74

1833

3729.8

59.76

i7 7740K @ 4.3 GHz

27312

10.48

957

2022.15

34.80

i7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz

26492

10.5

974

1957.19

32.93

Things were all over the map on the Hwbot benchmarks WPrime and SuperPi with the newer CPUs not putting their best foot forward on my test system and OS, especially with the 7900K. It’s 300 Mhz faster but doesn’t show it here for whatever reason.

WPrime 32M/1024M and Super Pi 1M/32M

Intel XTU, SuperPi, and wPrime Benchmarks – Raw Data

CPU

Intel XTU

wPrime 1024M

wPrime 32M

SuperPi 32M

SuperPi 1M

i7 6950X @ 3.0 GHz

2204

77.42

2.894

509.764

9.517

i9 7900K @ 3.3GHz

X

78.37

3.358

565.154

10.9

i7 7740K @ 4.3 GHz

X

149.285

4.909

440.739

8.611

i7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz

1268

145.188

4.797

441.233

8.407

Game Results

Game results are not going to be surprising to most. We set the CPUs at the exact same speed (6950X/7900X at 4 GHz and the 7740K and 7700K at 4.5 GHz) with the only difference being the ram speed and timings. Results are very close indeed. With the clockspeeds these can all achieve, I wouldn’t expect much of a difference unless the game tested can use more than eight threads.

Game Comparisons

Head to Head Results

Head to head results are listed in the slideshow below and show us, overall, of slight improvement over their predecessors again. The 7900X shows improvements of 10% or so in many AIDA tests, while others (the less optimized ones perhaps?) show no gain at all. The Kaby Lake-X CPU shows little to no improvement as expected since its the same thing but on a different platform.

Overclocking

I’ll be honest here… I wish I had more time with the platform. But I spent most of it just getting all the data you see above then updating the graphs, etc. To that end, with the 7900X, I was able to get it to 4.5 GHz using 1.3 V. I likely could have used less, but, just set it and went. We can see I was just about at my thermal limits with stress testing so we are just about topped out here without a delid. Most 6950Xs couldn’t reach 4.5 GHz (low 4’s for the most part) so we do see improved overclocking in Skylake-X versus Broadwell-E. These clocks also reach well past what any Ryzen can do as well.

4.5 GHz

Power Consumption and Temperatures

Power consumption for the 7900X was about in line with what I was expecting with the platform for the most part. Prime 95 (v 28.10) Small FFT really made the CPU scream peaking at 465 W at the wall. If you are pushing the 10 core far, you will want a robust motherboard (which the ASUS PRIME X299-Deluxe made a solid showing… if only with some coil whine) and robust cooling. The temps you see for 7900X are on a large custom loop. So the TIM is certainly good enough for normal use, but leaves something to be desired when pushing clocks. There is no doubt I wish there was solder on these high end parts still as they could be pushed even farther I would imagine.

Nothing out of the ordinary with the 7740K all around. Power use increased a bit on the newer, more power hungry platform, but remember the chip itself went from 91 W to 112 W as well.

7900X Power Consumption

7740K Power Consumption

Temperatures 7900X

7740K Temperatures

Conclusion

So where did we end up with these CPUs? In a nutshell, the 7900K brought some minor IPC improvements in some areas in our our testing, while the 7740K is simply a faster 7700K on a more robust platform.Our testing, due to a not fully optimized AIDA64 test application, really blurred the lines in trying to get a clear read on performance. Platform immaturity also didn’t help our cause either. If you look around the web, we can see though that IPC was barely increased, so its mostly clocks and other tweaks that show improvement if any. Some. due to the difference in L3 cache, even performed worse, but this is use specific and not general performance.

Overclocking headroom is said to be improved on the 7740K due to the better/large PCB/substrate its on. Truth be told, I couldn’t confirm that in the time we had with the chips. By the time this is published, I would have had two full days with them. Since the Kaby Lake-X is old hat, I focused more on the 7900K with my overclocking. We see that reached 4.5 GHz and stable enough to run some all thread benchmarks and 35+ minutes of the standard AIDA64 stress test so its reasonably stable there. The concern, or really I should say limit, was with the temperatures. Intel has chosen to bypass the Indium solder for this stuff that doesn’t work as well as many enthusiasts would like it to. I guess delidding is in the cards if you really really need to push these things as volts are just not getting in the way, at least on my sample.

Intel improved upon its Turbo Boost 3.0 for the Skylake-X SKUs with the boost going up to 4.5 GHz, higher by 500 MHz than the 6950X, and now using TWO cores instead of one. From baseclocks to full Turbo Boost 3.0 is a large 1.2 GHz increase and will help with single threaded apps needing core speed for best results. Another notable improvement is the cache management. We saw incremental improvements in many tests with some of that having to do with the 4x increase in L2 private cache. Don’t judge a book by its cover with the 7900X having a lot less L3 on tap… the L2 is going to do its job in many cases negating the need to utilize the L3 as frequently. However in tasks (read: some compiles) it could use that beefier cache. Another item to consider on the Skylake-X chips is the increase in PCIe lanes available to 44 on the 7900X and up. The hex and quad cores come in with less at 28 CPU attached lanes, while the Kaby Lake-X processors sit with 16.

We haven’t talked too much about pricing in the article, but the 7900K comes in at $999 while the 7740K comes in at $339 (1K units). If we remember the 6950X release, that deca-core monster started out life as a $1700+ CPU on day one. Over time, and since AMD decided to get competitive on the performance side of things, that has since dropped to $999 also. So it starts out a lot cheaper, a great thing for consumers. The real competition on this platform for many of us though are the Hex/Octo parts, the 7800X and 7830X. These two are priced at $389 and $599 respectively. Will it isnt taking the price /performance crown from AMD’s hex/octo’s it is offering faster clockspeeds and slightly better IPC…and for this, you need to pay for the best. Pretty simple. But with that said, the pricing structure feels like its a lot more in order compared to pre-Ryzen days.

Overall, Intel has managed to bring to market another top performing formidable line of CPUs in the HEDT side of the house. This time, with a bit of influence, pricing is a bit more down to earth and competitive. You should find the 7900X on down in stores today.

]]>http://www.overclockers.com/intel-skylake-x-i9-7900x-and-kaby-lake-x-i7-7740k-cpu-review/feed/0Noctua NF-A20 Fan Reviewhttp://www.overclockers.com/noctua-nf-a20-fan-review/
http://www.overclockers.com/noctua-nf-a20-fan-review/#respondTue, 13 Jun 2017 10:40:18 +0000http://www.overclockers.com?p=105553&preview_id=105553As of May 2017 Noctua released its NF-A20 fan as the NF-A20 FLX two-speed fan and the NF-A20 PWM variable speed fan. Noctua has been working on a 200 mm fan for years – it first showed a 20 cm prototype in 2013 at Computex, so this month will be exactly four years. They had to have been working on it before that, to make a prototype, but only now has Noctua released their 200 mm fan. As their press relations person said, “We really had to put our backs into this one to make it happen. It's so easy to build a 200mm fan that spins, but so hard to build one that performs, doesn't feel flimsy, and will spin for more than 10 years...” Were the results worth it? Let’s see! Read More

]]>As of May 2017 Noctua released its NF-A20 fan as the NF-A20 FLX two-speed fan and the NF-A20 PWM variable speed fan. Noctua has been working on a 200 mm fan for years – it first showed a 20 cm prototype in 2013 at Computex, so this month will be exactly four years. They had to have been working on it before that, to make a prototype, but only now has Noctua released their 200 mm fan. As their press relations person said, “We really had to put our backs into this one to make it happen. It’s so easy to build a 200mm fan that spins, but so hard to build one that performs, doesn’t feel flimsy, and will spin for more than 10 years…” Were the results worth it? Let’s see!

About Noctua

Noctua is a “cooperation” of the Austrian firm Rascom Computer Distribution with the Taiwanese cooling specialist Kolink International Corporation. Noctua operates as a joint venture between Kolink and Rascom. They have been delighting computer enthusiasts since 2005 with their high quality products. Whatever their legal status, Noctua equipment is shipped from Rascom in Austria. “Noctua” literally means nightbird in Latin. Since there is an owl in Noctua’s logo, you will expect them to focus on quiet air-cooling.

About the Noctua NF-A20

Who needs a 200 mm fan? There are a few computer cases that need 200 mm fans. But those are a minority of cases. I put that question to Noctua. Their spokesman said,

We do expect the NF-A20 to become popular among our non-PC clients as well and have already received numerous inquiries after launching it. At the moment, many industrial clients in fields such as building ventilation or green walls use our 140mm models and we expect some of them to get even better results (performance/noise, performance/watt, etc.) by switching to the A20.

Speaking of that:

[W]e have already got an enquiry from a company that is currently using several hundred fans of this size for ventilating a data center. Since our NF-A20 is much more power efficient than the model they are currently using, switching to the NF-A20 will allow them to save several hundred dollars of electricity per day!

More on the NF-A20 from Noctua:

With the 20cm NF-A20, Noctua’s biggest fan yet, the key challenge was that the mass of the impeller is about four times greater than that of 12 or 14cm fans and thus creates a significantly higher load on the bearing. In the end, the difficulties were overcome by increasing the diameter of the axis and the bearing from 3mm to 4mm in order to distribute the load over a larger bearing surface, as well as by using a new fibreglass reinforced polypropylene (PP) material, which reduces the mass of the impeller by 26% as compared to Noctua’s standard fibreglass reinforced PBT material.

As for the screw-holes of the NF-A20, Noctua says this in their installation guide (available online):

In order to ensure broad compatibility with today’s PC cases, the NF-A20 PWM features three sets of mounting holes: While the 154x154mm and 110x180mm spacing allow it to replace most 200mm fans, the 170x170mm spacing is used by many 230mm and 250mm fans, which can thus also be replaced by the NF-A20 PWM.

As there is no fixed industry standard for the size or hole spacing of 200mm, 220mm, 230mm or 250mm fans. Please carefully check both the hole setup of your chassis and the available space (the NF-A20 PWM is 30mm thick whereas some other 200mm fans are only 20mm or 25mm!) in order to verify that the NF-A20 PWM is compatible with your chassis.

Flow Acceleration Channels (“Boundary layer separation from the suction side of the fan blades leads to increased vortex noise and lower airflow efficiency. In order to suppress this phenomenon, the Noctua’s A-Series impellers feature suction side Flow Acceleration Channels.”)

SSO2 Bearing (“self-stabilizing oil-pressure bearing”)

(On the PWM fan) NE-FD1 IC (a PWM controller that doesn’t click)

Noctua NF-A20 Specifications

The specifications of the FLX and PWM versions of the Noctua NF-A20 are the same:

Less than 1 watt to move such a large fan! This is one very efficient fan.

Unboxing the Noctua NF-A20

When you first handle an NF-A20 box you think of pizza. The boxes feel like the boxes that carry pizzas, right down to the corrugated cardboard (recyclable, you see). I have placed a 120 mm NF-P12 in front of one of the boxes so you can see just how big these fans are.

Noctua NF-A20 – Two Boxes

Opening the box gets you Noctua’s installation manual (it is also online here) on top. At the bottom you find the fan snuggled in its recyclable plastic case. Under that is a box of accessories for your particular fan.

Noctua NF-A20 – open box

The accessories that come with the FLX fans: a package of four standard fan screws, a 3-pin extension line, a 3-pin voltage reducing adapter (contains a resistor but does not get too warm; Noctua calls this a Low Noise Adapter, AN-R13) a 4-pin adapter drawing 12 volts from the PSU, a set of flat-ended vibration-reducing fan mounts and a set of four double-ended vibration-reducing fan mounts. That’s three ways to mount your fan, all included. The installation instructions tell you how to mount these fans into a blind area using the double-ended mounts.

3pin Accessories

The accessories that come with the PWM fans: a PWM LNA (NA-R6), a Y-cable, a package of four standard fan screws, a PWM extension line, a set of four double-ended vibration-reducing fan mounts, and a set of flat-ended vibration-reducing fan mounts. In one socket of the Y-cable there are three conductors instead of four, so the RPM of only one of the two fans gets sent.

Noctua NF-A20 – PWM Accessories

The Noctua NF-A20

When you take a Noctua NF-A20 out of its box, you are struck by how solid it feels. No flimsy fan, this. Solid frame, solid impeller. Solid. When I put this fan down on the box I used to test 180 mm fans the 170×170 mm screw-holes just fit! But those fans were flimsy compared to these.

Here is a pair of Noctua NF-A20 fans. Aside from the colors, what strikes you that the hub is squared off. This is a characteristic of some very powerful fans. As the Noctua representative said, “It’s just the impeller hub that’s reinforced.”

Noctua NF-A20 Exhaust & Intake

Close to that hub, we read “SSO2 system with metal bearing shell.” Around the rim, we see that the motor in the center is supported with six struts. The motors of smaller fans are supported by four or even three struts.

Noctua NF-A20 Hub

A view of the corner confirms what you probably guessed: this is not a big square frame but a round frame with square ears. You can see the vibration absorbing corner pads as well.

Noctua NF-A20 – Corner

Noctua NF-A20 Testing Setup

The fans were placed in a test stand, where their free air RPM was observed and their noise was assessed. The standard proxy for what you can hear is the Sound Pressure Level (SPL), measured in decibels and given a type A weighting (dBA). A silent room is about 30 dBA.

The ambient noise for this set of testing is 31 dBA. To measure noise levels that were softer, the Sound Pressure Level (SPL) was measured 10 cm from each fan. SPL was adjusted to 1 meter by subtracting 20 dB. The sound pressure meter is a Tenma 72-942. This fan tester has a microphone which is not accurate under 30 dBA. This is the limit of all but the most expensive SPL meters. The NF-A20 fan was tested at 25 cm but the non-LNA results were consistent with the 10 cm results and the meter would not measure low enough to distinguish the fan with its LNA at that distance. Finally, at low levels sound measurement by extrapolation is not accurate, so that sound measurements are approximate.

The airflow was assessed using a standard measure, cubic feet per minute, or CFM. The air entered a sealed 8″x8″x8″ box (200+ mm on a side) where it was allowed to mix. The air left the box through an exhaust port, where it was measured with the vane head of an Extech AN100 anemometer, averaging 10 readings per fan setting. Normally I put a dust filter over a fan, but in this case I did not have 200 mm dust filters. You just get free air.

Results of Testing the Noctua NF-A20

The NF-A20 was tested in pairs, PWM and FLX. But because the data clustered so tightly, the fans are presented as a group of four. How tightly did the fans bunch up? Would you believe 79 to 81.5 CFM without LNA, and 57.5 to 61 CFM with LNA for the four fans? That is very tight. Here is the data shown graphically:

These are with my own equipment, remember. On professional equipment the readings will differ. But this gives you a ballpark estimate. About the sound: this fan makes a soft sound like a breeze in the trees.

How about the PWM? Well, here is the RPM vs PWM signal:

You can see that the PWM controls fanspeed even with the LNA attached. This is not true for a lot of fans. In essence when you buy a Noctua NF-A20 PWM, you’re buying two PWM fans. Also, see how slow these fans can go?

Finally, the sound. The SPL meter measures the sound pressure where it is sited. But sound pressure is not what you hear.

Noctua NF-A20 Pricing and Availability

The MSRP from Noctua is:

NF-A20 PWM: EUR 29.90 / USD 29.90

NF-A20 FLX: EUR 29.90 / USD 29.90

The NF-A20 is not up on Amazon or Newegg at time of this writing.

Noctua NF-A20 Conclusions

These fans took a long time to get right. Noctua should be praised for holding them back until they were this good. These are strongly built fans. Just holding them is a pleasure. In the photographs you can see the struts, but in person the broad blades seem to take up the whole disk. The fans come with a lot of accessories, including enough that you can choose how to fasten your fan. And the many screw-holes will let this fan to go into a large number of settings.

You won’t be able to tell that Noctua used a new material for its impeller: it behaves like a 120 mm or a 140 mm fan. It has none of the pliability you have come to expect in a fan this large. It’s solid and Noctua is keeping the price down to match their other fans. That last is pretty amazing.

At bottom a fan is a fan. It is a rotating device which pushes air. But this moves a lot of air and it does so very quietly and uses less than a watt doing so. The Noctua NF-A20 is not very expensive. It makes me want to go out and get a case that needs 200 mm fans.

]]>http://www.overclockers.com/noctua-nf-a20-fan-review/feed/0ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1070 Gaming 8G Reviewhttp://www.overclockers.com/asus-rog-strix-gtx-1070-gaming-8g-review/
http://www.overclockers.com/asus-rog-strix-gtx-1070-gaming-8g-review/#respondSat, 10 Jun 2017 16:25:34 +0000http://www.overclockers.com/?p=105473Today on the review rig, we have the ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1070 to share with you. The 1070 Strix promises to have good and quiet cooling, your now typical RGB LEDs, and superior performance over any Founders Edition (FE) cards due to the factory overclock. There are a couple of neat features here, one of which is FanConnect, which you will later see why this sets the card apart from the others. Read on below to see if they have again accomplished what they set out to do! Read More

]]>Today on the review rig, we have the ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1070 to share with you. The 1070 Strix promises to have good and quiet cooling, your now typical RGB LEDs, and superior performance over any Founders Edition (FE) cards due to the factory overclock. There are a couple of neat features here, one of which is FanConnect, which you will later see why this sets the card apart from the others. Read on below to see if they have again accomplished what they set out to do!

Specifications

Below is our list of specifications for the 1070 Strix from the ASUS website for the card. As we might expect, it’s all GTX 1070 under the hood. From the 8GB of GDDR5 (runs at 8008 MHz), 256-bit Memory Interface, to the GP104-200 core and its 1,920 CUDA cores. Core clocks on the Strix, in Gaming mode (default) show a boost clock of 1,835 MHz (actual of 1,974 MHz). OC Mode raises that up a bit to 1,860 Mhz. You can engage this mode with a simple click in the GPU Tweak II software.

Outputs are of the typical fare with 1x DVI-D, 2x HDMI (v2.0), and 2x DisplayPorts (v1.4). So you are “VR Ready” and have a slew of options to choose from. More specifications can be found in the table below or at the ASUS website for the ROG Strix 1070.

Features

The ROG Strix 1070’s cooler uses their updated DirectCU technology to help keep the card quiet and cool… 30% cooler and 3x quieter performance according to ASUS. The latest version is the DirectCU III. This features Direct-GPU contact from the heat pipes which helps get more heat away from the GPU without another medium in the way.

What heatsink solution is complete without fans, right? ASUS uses their patented Triple Wing-Blade 0 dB Fans on the DCUIII cooler. The fan blade design is said to give you maximum airflow with 105% more air pressure while being 3x quieter than FE cards. Like many cards, the fans remain off until it hits around 60C so its silent desktop and light work.

The 1070 Strix also has ASUS FanConnect technology which helps for more efficient system cooling when used. In a nutshell, your case fans and such are based of the CPU temperature, but we know when gaming the GPU is typically the hottest device in the system. Because of this, the card may be doing its thing getting the heat away, but the case isn’t removing the additional heat load it as it should. To solve this problem, simply hook up 2 (max) case fans to their two 4-pin headers and let the ASUS FanConnect software ramp up those fans for the best cooling solution for the entire system.

The Strix also comes built to be overclocked. It is a different PCB than reference, as well as having superior PWM area compared to the FE. They use a 6+1 power phases to deliver clean power to the GPU and memory. The Super Alloy nomenclature includes 20% quieter chokes, 20% cooler DrMOS MOSFETS, a 2.5x increase in lifespan, and the POSCAP to improve overclocking capabilities.

Last but not least is the AURA RGB Lighting. Since every component has RGB LED’s these days, I’m pretty sure we all know what this is, right?! On the 1070 Strix, it has those RGB LED’s on the shroud and back of the GPU. There are several effects which can be controlled through their AURA VGA software allowing color and light action to merge seamlessly with any build theme.

DirectCU III features triple 0dB fans engineered with a patented wing-blade design that delivers maximum air flow and improved 105% static pressure over the heat sink, while operating at 3X quieter volumes than reference cards. The 0dB fans also let you enjoy games in complete silence and make DirectCU III the coolest and quietest graphics card in the market.

ASUS FanConnect

30% Cooler and 3X Quieter Performance

When gaming, GPU temperatures are often higher than CPU temps. However, chassis fans usually reference CPU temperatures only, which results in inefficient cooling of the system. For optimal thermal performance, ROG Strix graphics cards feature two 4-pin GPU-controlled headers that can be connected to system fans for targeted cooling.

Our always gratuitous GPU-Z screenshot. Yep, its a 1070, and the clocks match up from the specifications. All good here!

GPU-Z v1.20

Retail Packaging

The slideshow below shows the retail packaging for the ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1070: A fairly plain, mostly black box with a picture of the card as well as the model. The back shows off some specifications as well as some of the features mentioned above. The card sits inside of another box with “Strix” across the top. When opening that box, you are greeted with a smaller box which holds some of the accessories. Below it lays the card itself packed in an anti-static bag siting well protected in form-fitting foam.

Meet the ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1070 8G Gaming

Our first glimpse of the GPU shows the sharply-lined black shroud and the three fans moving air across the DirectCU III heatsink hiding below. If you look closely, you can see the RGB LEDs almost looking like eyebrows, both above and below the fans. Overall a pretty good looking design. Flipping the card around shows a nicely designed and aesthetically-pleasing backplate. The Republic of Gamers symbol, on the left in white, is also backlit by an RGB LED. Again, it’s a solid-looking card and because its only real color hues come from the RGB LEDs, it will easily fit in any themed build. Just change the color!

ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1070

Back

A Twist!

Now the other way!

Bottom’s Up!

Topside

A Closer Look

The first picture shows the gunmetal I/O plate and the outputs. There are plenty to go around for VR gaming and multiple monitors with the 2x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort, and 1x DVI-D. Power comes from a single 8-Pin located on the top side of the card. This gives you a clean 225 W of total power. Plenty for what headroom NVIDIA allows.

Outputs – DVI-D, 2x HDMI (v2.0), DisplayPort (v.14)

8-Pin Power Required!

Taking off the DirectCU III cooler exposes the non-reference PCB. I left the metal heatsink on the memory just for the picture’s sake. The next thing that may jump out to you is the sloppy thermal paste application. Not sure what happened there, but it didn’t seem to have an effect on temperatures as they were within the typical range, if not lower than others. I’m not sure if this is a one off or what, but it doesn’t look pretty anyway. Looking at the base of the heatsink we see the copper exposed direct contact heatpipes. Also there is more of the thermal paste which ran down the pipes. The VRM area makes contact with the heatsink through a thermal pad connected to the heat pipes and fin array. No worries here!

Heatsink Removed

Base of the Heatsink

In the last slideshow are pictures of the GP104-200 core, controller, the Micron GDDR5, and some IR MOSFETs.

Monitoring/Overclocking Software – GPUTweak 2 and VGA Aura

Below is a screenshot of GPU Tweak III which is a monitoring and overclocking tool for your card. Here you can switch into OC Mode with one click, monitor any critical part of the GPU with its real time graph, or take manual control and overclock the core and memory, and adjust the fans yourself.

GPUTweak

Below is the VGA AURA software where you can control all the LEDs on the GPU.

Synthetic Benchmarks

Our first benchmark, Unigine Valley, shows the Strix 1070 scoring 3,869 points, putting itself right between the other 1070’s, all within 3% of each other. In Heaven, it scored 4,735 points beating out the MSI 1070 Aero ITX by almost 4% and being 4.5% behind the Quick Silver 1070. The Quick Silver does have a slight clockspeed advantage though, which explains the difference there.

Unigine Valley and Unigine Heaven

Moving on to 3D Mark Fire Strike, the Strix hits 8,226 points again landing in the middle of either 1070. This time, however, there is 1% between them. In 3DMark Time Spy the 5,894 points again puts it in between the MSI 1070s.

3DMark Fire Strike (Extreme) and 3DMark Time Spy

Gaming Benchmarks

Moving on to the games, we see much of the same story as far as where the Strix performs compared to the rest of the lineup we chose. Clearly all games are playable, yes, even Crysis 3 averaging over 55 FPS, with Dirt:Rally reaching 79.9 FPS and Metro: Last Light at 75 FPS. The 1070 is a nice sweetspot for Ultra settings at 1080p resolutions.

Crysis 3, Dirt: Rally, Metro: Last Light

Clearly across all three games here, we see playable FPS with all titles here 90+ FPS.

Far Cry: Primal, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, and GTA V

In the last set of games, the FPS come back down to earth a bit. In Rise of the Tomb Raider we are again a bit below 60 FPS reaching 55.3, but the reality is there are plenty playable frame rates as minimums weren’t terribly far away. The same with Ashes of the Singularity, it averaged 57 FPS and was also buttery smooth. The Strix also manages to best its peers in this title, no doubt due to newer drivers in an newer title. No issues with The Division either reaching an 88.7 FPS average. Here also it manages a couple more frames than the other 1070s.

Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Division, and Ashes of the Singularity

2560×1440 Results

Moving on up in resolution, the FPS drop is a bit noticeable but still plenty playable for most titles. About the only ones you will have to adjust some settings for are Crysis 3 and ROTR. The 35 FPS AOTS has was not as choppy as one may think. You can really play a lot of titles at 2560×1440 with the 1070, especially an overclocked one like the Strix.

2560×1440 Results

Pushing the Limits

The fun part… how far did she go?!!! I was able to push the Strix to a stable boost of around 2,120 MHz on the core and the memory up to 8,852 MHz. For the test I set the fan to 70% to keep things nice and cool and stabilize the boost a bit. At this point, we were banging off the power limit a bit so this was the end without sacrificing more stable clocks speeds (*shakes fist in the air towards NVIDIA). That ended up scoring over 6,500 points, so not too shabby at all without any tweaks.

Temperatures and Power Consumption

The DirectCU III cooler kept the card settled to a maximum of 64C while overclocked and 62C at stock. The card stayed incredibly cool during these tests and in gaming. The cooler was also very quiet in these situations with the fan barely ramping up. At 70% she was definitely audible, but, outside of setting it manually, I doubt it will reach those speeds in most situations.

Temperatures

Power consumption on our test system peaked at 289 W. A quality 500 W PSU is plenty for a system like this.

Power Consumption

Conclusion

The ASUS Strix line has always embodied a certain level of quality and had an overall positive vibe from consumers. Its latest iteration in GTX 1070 form won’t change things a bit. It looks good and fits with any theme, performs well with its high factory overclock, and runs cool and quiet with the DirectCU III cooler. There really isn’t much to complain about.

If I had to nitpick at something, it would be this card’s sloppy TIM application. Again, there was good contact as temps were great, but that was a sloppy application on this sample. I took a cursory look around the web and didn’t find any other complaints about it, so this is likely a one-off situation.

Pricing on the ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1070 at newegg.com is $439.99. This puts the card right in the middle of the higher end 1070s like the Gigabyte AORUS Gaming, and the MSI Gaming X, and cheaper than the EVGA FTW 2. That tells me it’s priced right among its direct competition. If you are looking for a GTX 1070, make sure the ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1070 is on your short list.

]]>http://www.overclockers.com/asus-rog-strix-gtx-1070-gaming-8g-review/feed/0Patriot Hellfire M.2 NVMe SSD Reviewhttp://www.overclockers.com/patriot-hellfire-m-2-nvme-ssd-review/
http://www.overclockers.com/patriot-hellfire-m-2-nvme-ssd-review/#respondMon, 05 Jun 2017 14:40:48 +0000http://www.overclockers.com/?p=104255Up next in our review carousel is another very fast M.2 PCIe NVMe based SSD. With only Toshiba/OCZ and Samsung generally competing in this enthusiast space, it will be nice to see some more competition. To that end, our friends at Patriot have kindly sent over their 480GB Hellfire M.2 SSD. The Hellfire promises to be pretty quick using its Phison PS5007-E7 controller shared by others in the market. Let's dig in a bit and see what makes the Hellfire tick, and see how it performs in our testing. Read More

]]>Up next in our review carousel is another very fast M.2 PCIe NVMe-based SSD. With only Toshiba/OCZ and Samsung generally competing in this enthusiast space, it will be nice to see some more competition. To that end, our friends at Patriot have kindly sent over their 480 GB Hellfire M.2 SSD. The Hellfire promises to be pretty quick using its Phison PS5007-E7 controller shared by others in the market. Let’s dig in a bit and see what makes the Hellfire tick, and see how it performs in our testing.

Specifications and Features

Below is the Specifications table. We see it pairs the 8-Channel Phison PS5007-E7 controller and the Toshiba 15 nm MLC NAND for its storage and controller purposes. Patriot lists performance as 3000 MB/s sequential reads and 2400 MB/s sequential writes. Random 4K IOPS come in at 170K and 220K respectively.

These drives come in at the m.2 2280 size, approximately 8cm x 2.2cm x .31cm. Although last year at Computex, I recall seeing a 110 mm 1 TB Hellfire, but we haven’t seen it in the wild yet.

The drive has a rating of two million hours MTBF to go along with 350 TBW (terabytes written) for the 480 GB drive. I am confident writes will not be an issue on this drive as it hasn’t been in the SSD world for a few generations now. With that, Patriot offers a 3-Year warranty for the drive. This is a bit behind others in the same segment, but still what most would consider enough.

Patriot Hellfire 480 GB Specifications

Capacity

480 GB (also 240 GB)

Interface

PCI Express Base Specification Revision 3.1 (PCIe) NVMe 1.2

Controller

Phison PS5007-E7

Flash

Toshiba 15 nm planar MLC

Form Factor

M.2 2280

Dimensions

8cm x 2.2cm x .31cm

MTBF

2M hours / 350 TBW (480 GB)

Sequential Read/Write Speeds

3000/2400 MB/s (480GB) 170K/210K IOPS (4K random)

Service & Support

3 Years

Pricing

480GB $258, 240GB $169 (newegg.com)

Packaging/Product Tour

Next up is the retail packaging. Here we see the Hellfire sold in blister pack type packaging. The Hellfire sits in the plastic surrounded by some cardboard. Looks like these are intended to hang on a shelf with the cut out on the cardboard. The packaging shows high level details on the front like the brand, model, size, and interface, while the back goes over a couple of features such as the advanced wear leveling and garbage collection.

Retail Packaging – Front

Back

The Drive

Below we see a picture of the drive itself – I love these little M.2 drives! There isn’t terribly much to see, it is, for the most part, standard fare. Perhaps one of the more unique things is the drive uses both sides of the PCB whereas most I have seen use one side, particularly for this capacity. Just note for laptops this can be an issue as some cannot fit double sided M.2 sticks.

Patriot Hellfire 480 GB – Front

Back

Zooming in on the drive, I took off the sticker on the front to expose all of the chips it uses. We see the Phison PS5007-E7 controller in the first picture, followed by the Toshiba 15 nm MLC NAND used, and the NANYA based DRAM buffer.

Phison 5007 Controller

Toshiba 15nm MLC NAND

Nanya

Software

Below is a slideshow of the Patriot PCIe Toolbox. Like other SSD Toolboxes, you are able to capture information about the drive via SMART data (which wouldn’t work for me, for whatever reason… other sites it worked), Secure Erase the drive, as well as update the firmware. A basic package of tools. No issues outside of the SMART data not working.

Testing Method and Test System

Each SSD is Secure Erased (SE) using the included utility to make sure we get the best results possible. We do this before each and every test run to give the comparison samples the best environment possible for testing. Below are the tests we run with a brief description.

Performance/Results

CrystalDiskMark

On to the benchmarks! Our first stop is with CrystalDiskMark and its random reads and writes. For reads, we can see the high queue depth really lets this drive stretch its legs leading the pack by nearly 200 MB/s. With single queue depth (QD), it falls back behind the OCZ and Samsung, but still manages to be a bit ahead of the Intel drive. Single QD 4K results were right in line with the other drives while the QD32 results brought it to the front of the pack. A pretty solid showing here for sure.

Moving on to writes, We see solid performance in the sequential QD32 tests and regular sequential. Not the best, not the worst in the round up. 4K writes were the lowest of the group here but just barely. Crank up the QD and it again leads the pack.

CrystalDiskMark – Reads

CrystalDiskMark – Writes

AS SSD

AS SSD Reads showed similar results to above… a bit all over the place. In sequential reads the Hellfire leads the pack by a significant margin, while its 2nd in 4K. Yet when we go to the 4K-64Thrd results it’s trailing considerably behind the other drives. Perhaps the QD scaling stops and makes an about face somewhere?

AS SSD – Reads

Writes

Here, for whatever reason, things just don’t look great. the good news, for Patriot, is my results are anomalous. If you look at say, Anand’s results for this drive, they are showing sequential writes well over 1200 MB/s. I have tried everything I know of to get through this, even reinstalling the OS from scratch, but, I still received these results.

Nothing to see here outside of write access being incredibly slow again… makes sense with the results above. Reads were just fine matching the quickest we have tested.

The overall score is brutally low to the other drives and what it should be comparatively, mostly due to the write results I had. This would have boosted the overall score up considerably. I have linked some other results showing what this drive can really do in AS SSD from thessdreview.com website.

Access Times

AS SSD – Total Score

ATTO

ATTO is doing its thing showing off the best case scenario with these drives. In this sequential, highly compressible benchmark, the Hellfire starts off fast, and leads throughout the testing by a pretty fair margin throughout.

ATTO – Reads

Writes are showing the same thing with this drive maxing out at nearly 2400 MB/s. More important are the 4k values. Here, like in reads above, it was leaps and bounds faster.

ATTO – Writes

Anvil Storage Utility

Last up, Anvil Storage Utility. This application goes through several different tests giving one an idea of all around performance. Here again, our testing was way off compared to other sites that ran this benchmark. While I scored 5.6K, they scored 10.4K. Again, not sure what is going on with this drive and my system.

Anvil Storage Utility Benchmark

Conclusion

Patriot’s Hellfire has shown some real promise in performance, beating out some powerhouses in some tests, and falling in the middle of the pack in others. Only rarely was it the slowest of the bunch. I speak in terms of my results which match other reviews but also referencing other reviews which showed some benchmarks scoring way higher.

After talking with Patriot on the issue, they had us make sure write-back cache was enable on the drive for best performance. When that still didn’t help much in the testing, they said, “the OS keeps sending FUA commands in the background which affects the 4K writes”. They go on to say, AS-SSD and Anvil benchmarks simulate deeper QD (Queue Depths) will have this kind of issue, ATTO/CDM use QD1 so it doesn’t affect it”. That was right from Patriot, but yet still doesn’t explain why other sites are able to reach much higher speeds.

The Patriot Hellfire M.2 NVMe SSD carries your typical features found on M.2 PCIe 3.0 4x NVMe-based drives, but not much else. It does what it intends to do – be a very fast drive. Pricing comes in at ~$281 from newegg.com. This puts it well under the venerable Samsung 960 Pro, and a few dollars more than the currently on sale Toshiba/OCZ RD400 512 GB. Both drives have a capacity advantage, sometimes speed advantage, but definitely a warranty advantage over the Hellfire. Performance-wise, they seem to beat each other up depending on which test you look at. So the performance is certainly there.

Overall, the Patriot Hellfire showed up and played with the big boys in the market very well. Pricing is a lot less than those it trades blows with (unless there is a sale of course). If you are in need of something just as fast as these higher priced drives, be sure the Patriot Hellfire is on your list when shopping for an M.2 PCIe 3.0 4x NVMe based drive!